Jim Nutt (b. 1938, Pittsfield, MA), gained recognition in the late 1960s as a member of the exhibiting group of Chicago artists known as the “Hairy Who” (later regarded under the broader umbrella of Chicago Imagists), along with his wife, Gladys Nilsson, and four other recent graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. At a moment when the art world was dominated by New York abstraction, Nutt presented a provocative alternative that depicted lurid, malformed figures engaged in acts of violence, sexual perversion and scatological humor with exacting precision. While the work unwittingly succeeded in chal-lenging the reigning visual aesthetic, Nutt has insisted that the exhibits were simply “an enthusiastic response of wanting to make something.”

Informed as much by comic books and pinball machines as by folk art and Northern Renaissance portraiture, Nutt has developed a singular style over his distinguished career while influencing countless artists as diverse as Je˛ Koons, Mike Kelley, and Carroll Dunham. His numerous solo exhibitions include the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; and San Francisco Art Institute, CA. Recent group exhibitions include the Smithsonian American Museum of Art, Washington, D.C.; Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI; Tang Museum, New York; Met Breuer, New York; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Austria; Morgan Library & Museum, New York; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI; amongst others.

Nutt’s work is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Ball State Museum of Art, IN; Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, WI; Morgan Library & Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C.; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; amongst others. Jim Nutt lives and works in Chicago.