In 1969, the exhibition Don Baum says: “Chicago Needs Famous Artists” was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Curators Don Baum and Ruth Horwich presented Don Baum says: “Chicago Has Famous Artists,” a retrospective that featured the work of over seventy artists who have shown at the Hyde Park Art Center. The exhibition highlighted the role of the Art Center in presenting Chicago audiences with challenging and provocative new talent from its founding to the present day. The exhibition ran concurrently with the Museum of Contemporary Art’s major survey exhibition, Art in Chicago, 1945-95.
Some of Chicago’s most established artists were featured in the exhibition. Gertrude Abercrombie’s Three Doors, 1957, painted at the time of Hyde Park’s major redevelopment; Whitney Halstead’s small puzzle-piece abstraction, 1968; Alice Shaddle, artist and teacher at the Center presented a paper mache piece entitled, “Winged Victory”, 1965; Ralph Arnold exhibited a collage of magazine cut-out ads from 1966, Ronald Ginzel’s sculptural piece of suspended shapes was from 1967 and Ed Pascke’s piece Purple Ritual, 1967 a painting was exhibited. The exhibition also featured works by the famous, Hairy Who group, launched by Baum. Roger Brown, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, and Karl Wirsum exhibited painted works. The exhibition also featured contemporary Chicago artists Ben Prange, a sculptor who used found objects to create his beer-bottle chandelier, painter Tim Doud who presented his two-sided portraits, and painter Frank Klement’s self portrait.
