Resurrecting Chicago

These days I am involved in exhibiting Kathryn Bradford Dyer’s linocuts.  She was a local artist who taught at the Art Institute of Chicago for twenty years. I knew her and  she had no family, so when she died, she left the art to me. I consider it my job to promote and preserve her art and introduce people to her through her art, thereby preserving her memory.

I am very happy with how the shows are working out –far better than I thought possible. It’s because I have people who actually like Kathryn Dyer’s art. Bruce, a local artist, appreciates her
soulful expression and Susan, a local designer, sees proportion and pattern in Kathryn’s work that perhaps only a designer could appreciate.

There’s a certain whimsy in the art of Kathryn Dyer that I never really noticed before. Along with the drama of her chronic depression which appears as a kind of darkness in Kathryn’s art, there was always a bit of wow here and there.

The linocut featuring Adlai Stevenson’s quote “The Life of an Egg-head is Difficult” shows his head rolling around as a chicken egg would in an eccentric way.   Also, her pieces of flotsam and jetsam from the sea shores and the Indiana sand dunes hang from her banner prints like little jokes, wry comments, happy serendipity.

The linocut show is called “From Darkness to Light, The Linocuts of Kathryn Dyer.” It was exhibited at Westmont Public Library for six weeks this Fall (2012). Now, a separate linocut show of her Christmas designs –Christmas Cards — she called them will be on exhibit at Lombard Public Library.

Benedictine University will exhibit the linocuts in April, 2013 for four to six weeks. I am delighted with this arrangement.  I only wish that Kathryn could see the faces of people as they see her art for the first time. Kathryn Dyer art is finally being exhibited and we are all better for having discovered it.