In Peak Form

A trio of female Chicago artists—Barbara Rossi, Phyllis Bramson, and Diane Simpson—are hitting their stride and attracting new fans, well into their careers.

- Robin Dluzen

The last several years have seen the brink of what will hopefully be a sea of change in the way we write, teach and exhibit art history. Among the long-awaited challenges to institutionalized biases is the revisiting of female artists whose practices have proven to have matched (and often outmatched) those of their male peers, but have received far less recognition. In Chicago, three established female artists who’ve each been practicing for 30 or 40 years have reasserted their places in the city’s artistic dialogue, with a season of powerhouse exhibitions. For Barbara Rossi and Phyllis Bramson, new takes on, and renewed interest in the trajectory of their careers prove the continuing resonance of their visions; for Diane Simpson, a spike in institutional and market attention have made for an unprecedented boom late in her career.

Barbara Rossi has the unique experience of being a living legend. As a central player of the Imagists, Chicago’s most famous art movement, Rossi created works that aligned with the group’s interest in distorted figures, bawdy palettes, and the vernacular visuals of the city. However, Rossi’s oeuvre has had a life beyond the Imagist 1970s heyday, as proven in part by “Barbara Rossi: Poor Traits,” an exhibition of the artist’s work from the late 1960s and early 1970s presented by the New Museum in New York last fall, and remounted May 12 – August 21, 2016, at DePaul Art Museum in Chicago. After a critically successful run on the East Coast, Rossi’s first solo show in her hometown in 25 years was accompanied by an auxiliary exhibition, “Eye Owe You!,” Rossi’s selection of photographs from her own massive archive of visual research materials.