West Town, Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, Kinzie Corridor, Humboldt Park

West Town

Wisconsin

IL • MI • IN

West Loop, Fulton Market, East Garfield Park

West Loop and West Side

Evanston, The North Shore, Northern, Western and Southern Suburbs

Suburbs

Old Town, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Roscoe Village, Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood, Uptown, Edgewater, Andersonville, Rogers Park

North Side

Michigan Avenue, Streeterville, The Gold Coast, The Loop, and South Loop

Michigan Avenue

Pilsen, Bridgeport, Chinatown, plus Hyde Park, Jackson Park/Dorchester, and Bronzeville

South Side

Superior and Franklin streets, West Chicago Ave, and down to Merchandise Mart and the River

River North

Join author Janet Mavec and Celia Hilliard for a conversation about Mavec’s book on the transformation of a historic property in New Jersey into a vibrant and evolving garden paradise.

Bird Haven Farm: The Story of an Original American Garden by Janet Mavec

Our Free Days Are Taking The Night Shift! From March through November, we’re returning to Free First Tuesdays! On the first Tuesday of every month, enjoy extended hours from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm - admission is free for all, no residency restrictions. Want more chances to visit? Take a look at our full lineup of 2026 Free Days below and mark your calendar!

Free First Tuesday

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.mocp.org/events/lecture-in-photography-carla-williams/" target="_blank">Lecture in Photography: Carla Williams</a>Wednesday, May 6, 20266:00-7:30 pm Ferguson Lecture Hall600 S. Michigan Ave.Chicago, IL&nbsp; Carla Williams (American, b. 1965) is a photographer and curator known for her explorations of identity, race, gender, and representation. In her early work in the 1980s, she used a large-format camera to explore her own image, in work that reflected the lack of visibility of Black women in photographic history. Williams is the co-author of&nbsp;The Black Female Body: A Photographic History&nbsp;(2002) with Deborah Willis. She served as a curator of photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and was a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Lecture in Photography: Carla Williams

As part of the Newberry’s America 250 events, join authors Michelle Craig McDonald and Eric Slauter to learn about the global implications of coffee and the American Revolution.

Coffee Nation Book Talk

ART HAS POWER! To transform, heal &amp; ignite us! It's just the prescription we need sometimes to bring us back to our human self. Come for a visit! Our spring show opening coincides with art EXPO CHICAGO. We are located just 1 mile from Navy Pier and nestled between Michigan Ave. &amp; the Northwestern medical complex in the newly landmarked 161 East Erie Row.

Art Prescriptions

This event will feature a lecture on enslaved labor and early American beer, as well as a beer release by Black-owned breweries, Funkytown and Soul Mega.

Brewing the Revolution

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://experience.mcachicago.org/7252/7260" target="_blank">Get Tickets</a> Admission is free to Family Day attendees. Celebrate the movements of our bodies. Designed for children under 12 and their grown-ups, MCA Family Days invite our youngest visitors to be the museum’s artists, thinkers, and collaborators. Image: Family Day | Playoffs, MCA Chicago, May 10, 2025. Photo: Natasha Moustache, © MCA Chicago.

Family Day | Let Loose

Wallace Bowling Artist TalkWallace Bowling’s “constructs” are three-dimensional, interactive artworks that juxtapose natural materials and cultural touchstones with sensual innuendo. Using mostly found objects and printed matter, Bowling, who was trained as an architect, crafts objects into structures which influence perception and invite gentle participation. All gallery events are free and open to the public.Additional information found at the gallery website at <a href="https://bgfa.us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bgfa.us</a>Image: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cigar box, b/w photo, vintage jewelry, “Tiffany blue” lid, 8 x 9 x 8”, 2026

Wallace Bowling Artist Talk

A visionary journey into the history of clubbing in Italy that starts with a look at its ruins spread across Italy. Its rise and fall, as told by the history’s key players; a tale that lasted 40 years, between nights on the highway and days consumed in after hours clubs. It was a seemingly unstoppable rise, like house music coming out of New York. It’s a story of four generations yearning to be added to a list to get into places of gathering and perdition, where what counts is not what you do during the day, but only who you turn into at night. Forty years of “planet disco” producing culture, art, music and style, among plenty of contradictions and aberrations. Year: 2021Duration: 115′Language: Italian with English subtitlesCountry: ItalyGenre: documentary The screening is part of the series Moto Continuo Film Showcase, inspired by the theme leading the 2026 programming of the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago. The selected titles explore the concept of movement through recent works by Italian film directors: epic journeys, emotional tensions, and cultural currents intertwine to convey the complexity of the historical and social processes that have contributed to shaping the Italian cultural identity. Free with registration

Moto Continuo Film Showcase / “Disco Ruin” by Lisa Bosi and Francesca Zerbetto

Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (MoCP) announces its next exhibition,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mocp.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9e4250b7536dc23e9352b28ee&amp;id=1157c0cf86&amp;e=58cea278c7" target="_blank">MoCP at Fifty: Collecting Through the Decades</a>, on view January 22-May 16, 2026. As we enter the new year, MoCP celebrates its 50th anniversary. Since opening in 1976 and initiating collecting in 1979, MoCP has acquired over 18,000 objects by more than 2,000 artists, representing a broad scope of aesthetics, technologies, and processes. The variety of artworks collected has allowed the museum to engage in conversations across political, social, and cultural landscapes. To celebrate this milestone,&nbsp;MoCP at Fifty&nbsp;examines the evolving practice of building a dynamic collection, presenting a range of objects, from the rarely exhibited to newly acquired works. Together, these selections question and reflect on the role cultural institutions play in shaping the photographic canon. Each of the museum’s five galleries represents a decade of collecting, beginning with the most recent acquisitions (2016-2026) in the first gallery, then moving backwards through time. “Over five decades, the MoCP has built a collection that traces shifting cultural, political, and visual histories. This moment allows us to look back with reflection and celebrate our holdings, knowing that every photograph we steward becomes part of a larger conversation about how images shape our understanding of the world.” Karen Irvine, Chief Curator and Deputy Director Looking at MoCP’s collection decade by decade is as much an archive of history as it is of art. Collections are fluid, often evolving in ways that mirror the values and trends of society at large. The first decades are noticeably missing many women and artists of color, not because such artists were not making work at the time, but because cultural institutions had yet to fully consider the value of varied perspectives and forms of practice. The later decades were collected with intention, not only of addressing gaps in representation, but to embrace conceptual works and works that push the boundary of what defines “photography,” in the process expanding, innovating, and redefining what a photography museum can offer the public. This exhibition displays over 100 objects from the MoCP collection. Featured artists include: Joel Sternfeld (American, b. 1944), Barbara Crane (American, 1928–2019), Matthew Finley (American, b. 1972), Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953), Yasuhiro Ishimoto (Japanese American, 1921-2012), Dayanita Singh (Indian, b.1961), Bob Thall (American, b. 1948), Carlotta Corpron (American, 1901-1988), and various others. Uta Barth, Field #3, 1995; printed 2021. 2021:244

MoCP at 50: Collecting Through the Decades

Uncertain HistoriesJune 14, 2025 - May 24, 2026Chicago Cultural Center, Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) Hall Cases, 2nd Floor North Everything in history, once it has happened, looks as if it had to happen exactly that way. We can’t imagine any other. But I am convinced of the uncertainty of history, of the possibility of surprise, of the importance of human action in changing what looks unchangeable.—Howard Zinn (US Army veteran), 1994* The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Hall was built as a memorial to the sacrifices of Union Civil War veterans and their families. According to the renowned American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, their sacrifices were for freedom and a testament to the most profound declaration of human rights in history. Yet, Douglass also argued in a 1877 speech to the GAR, that the task of fully realizing this freedom remained unfinished. In the face of this unfinished task, and the current challenges to freedoms,&nbsp;Uncertain Histories&nbsp;reveals entanglement between past military actions and today’s state repression, between historic declarations and the current struggle for freedom. The creative practices of contemporary veteran artists&nbsp;Darrell W. Fair,&nbsp;Eric J. Garcia,&nbsp;Monty Little (Diné), and&nbsp;Amber Zora&nbsp;draw throughlines that complicate legacies of colonialism and militarism while seeking a more peaceful future. These creative acts of hope transform violent histories into stories of survival and resistance. As celebrated historian and World War II veteran Howard Zinn writes, “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.”* Uncertain Histories&nbsp;is curated by Aaron Hughes in affiliation with the emerging Veteran Art Movement, with support from the DEMIL Art Fund, DCASE, and the City of Chicago.* Howard Zinn,&nbsp;You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times&nbsp;(Beacon Press, 1994).

Uncertain Histories

Sculptor Angie Seykora repurposes fibers, vinyl, beads, plastics, wire, and found objects to create site-specific installations and sculptures. "These types of materials combined with intuitive approaches and responses to making result in non-representative works that incite the visual and tactile senses." Our gallery space will be activated by these large, compelling sculptures that are refined through this exploration of material.&nbsp;

Geometries In Light

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is excited to announce the Chicago presentation of&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=01546b90d5&amp;e=4ba592fe2a" target="_blank">Firelei Báez</a>, the first North American survey exhibition of the artist (b.1980, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic; lives in New York) running from November 15, 2025, to May 31, 2026. Spanning two decades of Báez’s spirited practice, this landmark exhibition showcases her vibrant and captivating paintings and installations. Through a bold visual language that blends folklore, fantasy, mythology and science fiction, Báez constructs layered worlds that challenge dominant historical narratives and unsettle the often-fixed categories of race, gender and nationality. In this exhibition, Báez also emphasizes resilience and creative agency, especially among marginalized communities who have always found ways to create refuge and power in defiance of systems of repression.Known for her richly pigmented, multidisciplinary approach, Báez combines saturated colors, intricate patterns and expressive figuration with abstract gestures, architectural plans, colonial-era maps and culturally resonant symbols. Her work draws deeply from Afro-Caribbean traditions and acts as a cultural and historical crossroads for the enduring legacies of colonialism across the Americas, the African Diaspora and the cultural nexus of the Caribbean. This major exhibition reaffirms Báez’s place as one of the most compelling and visionary artists of her generation.In addition to her dynamic paintings, the exhibition will feature one of her more immersive pieces,&nbsp;A Drexcyen chronocommons (To win the war you fought it sideways)&nbsp;(2019), which will occupy an entire gallery at the MCA. This large-scale work consists of paintings, mesh, papier-mâché, cutout tarp and plants that, together, transport visitors into one of Báez’s created worlds. Chicago is also highlighted in the exhibition:&nbsp;The trace, whether we are attending to it or not (a space for each other’s breathing)&nbsp;(2019) features a ciguapa (a feminine, trickster creature from Dominican folklore) bending over an architectural plan of the Illinois Central Railroad, uniting both sides of the tracks, which run between New Orleans and Chicago, to restore the divisions left by colonial trade.Firelei Báez&nbsp;is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and curated by Eva Respini, Deputy Director and Director of Curatorial Programs, Vancouver Art Gallery (former Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston), with Tessa Bachi Haas, Assistant Curator, ICA/Boston. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presentation is organized by Carla Acevedo-Yates, former Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, with Cecilia González Godino, former Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow, and Iris Colburn, Curatorial Associate. ABOUT THE ARTISTFirelei Báez (b. 1980, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic; lives in New York)&nbsp;was born to a Dominican mother and a father of Haitian descent. Her upbringing between Hispaniola’s two countries, which have a longstanding history of tension predicated on ethnic difference, informs her concerns with the politics of place and heritage. She currently lives and works in New York City.Báez received an M.F.A. from Hunter College, a B.F.A. from the Cooper Union’s School of Art, and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She is the subject of her first major US survey, which originated at the ICA/Boston, curated by Eva Respini, and is now traveling. Her work has been presented in many significant international exhibitions, including the inaugural installation of the ICA Watershed, Boston (2021), curated by Eva Respini, which traveled to The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas; and The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), curated by Cecilia Alemani. Recent solo presentations of Báez’s work include exhibitions at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; and Pérez Art Museum Miami. The artist has recently participated in a number of group exhibitions at major institutions, such as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Cleveland Museum of Art; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Baltimore Museum of Art; and Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. She is the recipient of many awards, most recently the Cooper Union President’s Citation (2022), Artes Mundi Prize (2021), and Philip Guston Rome Prize (2021). Báez’s work is held in many significant private and public collections; the latter include the Baltimore Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Dallas Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; Pérez Art Museum Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda,Angola; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Tate, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. SUPPORTMajor support for&nbsp;Firelei Báez&nbsp;is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.This project is supported in part by Karen and Brian Conway, David and Jocelyne DeNunzio, Mathieu O. Gaulin, The Kotzubei-Beckmann Family Philanthropic Fund, Lise and Jeffrey Wilks, and an anonymous donor.Lead support for&nbsp;Firelei Báez&nbsp;at MCA Chicago is provided by the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris, the Zell Family Foundation, Cari and Michael Sacks, and R. H. Defares.Major support is provided by Laura and Tony Davis and Linden Capital Partners, Newcity, Robin Loewenberg Tebbe and Mark Tebbe, and Charlotte R. Cramer Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III of Wagner Foundation.Generous support is provided by Nickol and Darrel Hackett, Hauser &amp; Wirth, the Margot and W. George Greig Ascendant Artist Fund.This exhibition is supported by the MCA’s Women Artists Initiative, a philanthropic commitment to further equity across gender lines and promote the work and ideas of women artists ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGOThe Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The MCA interweaves exhibitions, performances, collections, and educational programs while providing a place for audiences to contemplate and discuss contemporary art in pursuit of a creative and diverse future. The MCA believes in the values of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) as a platform to enact structural change. The museum is generously supported by its Board of Trustees; individual and corporate members; private and corporate foundations, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and government agencies. The MCA is a proud member of Museums in the Park and receives major support from the Chicago Park District.&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=91a06bd7c9&amp;e=4ba592fe2a" target="_blank">The MCA is located at 220 E. Chicago Avenue</a>&nbsp;and is open 10 am to 5 pm Wednesday to Sunday and Tuesdays from 10 am to 9 pm. Tuesday evenings (5-9 pm) are free for Illinois residents. The museum is closed on Mondays.&nbsp;Admission is free for all youth 18 and under, members of the military and veterans, and MCA members. Free admission for anyone 18 and under is generously provided by Liz and Eric Lefkofsky, and Northern Trust. Find more information about MCA's exhibitions, programs, and special events at&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=0649146eaa&amp;e=4ba592fe2a" target="_blank">mcachicago.org</a>&nbsp;or at 312.280.2660.

Chicago Presentation of Firelei Báez

Soft Evidence is a solo exhibition by Mami Takahashi that brings together video, textile-based installation, performance documentation, and collaborative works to explore how women’s bodies communicate, resist legibility, and carry memory within everyday life. Rooted in attentiveness rather than spectacle, the exhibition considers the body as both a site of expression and a surface onto which social expectations, histories, and perceptions are projected.

Soft Evidence

This exhibition marks the first time Matisse’s&nbsp;Jazzwill be shown in its entirety since the Art Institute acquired it in 1948. One of the most important artist books of the 20th century,&nbsp;Jazz&nbsp;joins more than 50 works from the museum’s renowned collection of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, illustrated books, and textiles to showcase Matisse’s commitment to continual innovation and the expressive power of color and line.

Matisse’s Jazz: Rhythms in Color

Celebrating a remarkable fifty-year period of artistic invention, this exhibition largely comprises drawings never before seen outside of Dunham’s own studio and highlights a more holistic look at his career. This show will strengthen our understanding of Dunham’s explorations of figuration to abstraction and everything in between.

Carroll Dunham: Drawings, 1974–2024

Our Free Days Are Taking The Night Shift! From March through November, we’re returning to Free First Tuesdays! On the first Tuesday of every month, enjoy extended hours from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm - admission is free for all, no residency restrictions.

Free First Tuesdays

Architect / Artist&nbsp;Wallace Bowling&nbsp;assembles numerous&nbsp;constructs&nbsp;in a&nbsp;10’ X 10’ X 10’&nbsp;Boxx&nbsp;at Bert Green Fine Arts, 8 South Michigan Avenue,&nbsp;concurrent with Expo Chicago 2026.&nbsp;The title&nbsp;Ensemble&nbsp;- individual components regarded as single and complete,&nbsp;forming a larger, more complex whole - is ideal.&nbsp;Ensemble opens Saturday, 11 April and runs through Saturday, 13 June.&nbsp;Opening Reception is on Saturday,&nbsp;11 April&nbsp;from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.&nbsp;Artist Talk is on Saturday,&nbsp;9 May&nbsp;from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.Closing Reception is on Saturday,&nbsp;13 June&nbsp;from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.The artist will be present at all events. “An artwork is not complete until it is viewed.”Marcel Duchamp, 1957&nbsp;

Wallace Bowling: Ensemble

Grey James’ latest works are concerned with his personal experience as a trans man, having experienced significant harassment and defamation. These works have become supercharged with emotion and defiance in response to being targeted by anti-trans individuals. PJOB is an acronym for “Pink Jerkoff Boy,” the title of a painting sold in 2017 that was used by James’ tormentors as evidence of his depravity. James has repurposed this title to reclaim his power.

Grey James: PJOB

John Stezaker, the British artist known for his groundbreaking conceptual collage cycles,&nbsp;debuts a new body of work&nbsp;at GRAY Chicago this spring.Titled&nbsp;Raft, the exhibition features a series of uncanny landscapes that mend together two images from the artist’s archives to create a single composition. Sourced from nineteenth-century British books—ostensibly about world travel, but flaunting the geographic extent of the empire—Raftis a continuation of the radically incisive collage techniques Stezaker has been pursuing for nearly six decades.The exhibition opens at GRAY Chicago on Saturday, March 28 with an artist walkthrough at 2:30 PM and a public reception from 3-5 PM.<a href="https://ennouncement.exhibit-e.com/t/y-l-atiikhl-sykijfhl-t/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Learn More</a>

John Stezaker: Raft

From a 6th-century gilt bronze Buddhist sculpture to white porcelain and contemporary paintings of the late 20th century, the works of art in this exhibition demonstrate the artistic legacy produced on the Korean peninsula over millennia. Among the 140 artworks on view, 22 are officially recognized as National Treasures or Treasures by the Korean government.

Korean National Treasures: 2,000 Years of Art

Our Free Days Are Taking The Night Shift! From March through November, we’re returning to Free First Tuesdays! On the first Tuesday of every month, enjoy extended hours from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm - admission is free for all, no residency restrictions.

The devastation of the two world wars played a pivotal role in shaping the field of modern plastic surgery. In the early twentieth century, surgeons became artisans—suturing torn flesh like tailors mending fabric, reinforcing facial structures like carpenters restoring damaged frames. These groundbreaking reconstructive techniques laid the foundation for a discipline that would evolve beyond necessity into the realm of aesthetics.Simultaneously, artists—painters, sculptors, and draftsmen documenting the wars—engaged in parallel work. They studied the human form, deconstructing and reimagining faces and bodies through drawings, sculpture, and canvas. Anatomical study, once central to classical realism, became a bridge between art and medicine, guiding surgeons in their quest to restore symmetry, balance, and expression. The artist’s eye informed the surgeon’s hand, just as surgical reconstructions inspired new artistic interpretations of the human body.By the latter half of the twentieth century, plastic surgery had moved beyond reconstruction to self-reinvention. Like artists shaping raw material into beauty, surgeons refined and reshaped faces and bodies to align with personal desires and cultural ideals. The line between restoration and enhancement blurred, and the human body itself became a canvas for transformation.With the dawn of the new millennium came once-unimaginable feats—most notably, full-face transplantation. Surgeons, like sculptors working in living clay, not only rebuilt faces but gave patients entirely new ones. These innovations merged medicine, aesthetics, and identity in unprecedented ways.Today, the relationship between plastic surgery and art continues to evolve. Surgeons and artists share a common pursuit: to shape, refine, and redefine the human form. Whether working with marble or muscle, canvas or cartilage, both seek to capture the essence of beauty, resilience, and identity in constant flux.The International Museum of Surgical Science is proud to present these coinciding exhibitions as&nbsp;"A Year of Plastic Surgery"—a yearlong exploration of this remarkable field. Through monthly programs, we celebrate the masters of both flesh and form, bridging the worlds of surgical innovation and figurative art. Header Image: A soldier of Company K, 110th Regt. Infantry (formerly 3rd and 10th Inf., Pennsylvania National Guard), just wounded, receiving first-aid treatment from a comrade. Varennes-en-Argonne, France, on September 26, 1918. U.S. Army / U.S. National Archives

The Artistry of Plastic Surgery

<a href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/free-and-independent" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Free and Independent: The Declaration of Independence and the Words That Made the United States</a>, features a rare early copy of the Declaration. The exhibition features more than two dozen historic items inviting visitors to survey selected phrases from the Declaration, such as "All Men are created equal," and to consider some of the surprising ideas behind those words. Collection items highlight influential figures such as John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. On display will be the only surviving manuscript copy of John Jay’s&nbsp;Federalist no. 3, one of only five surviving manuscript drafts of any of the Federalist essays. The exhibition is curated by Eric Slauter, Deputy Dean of the Arts and Humanities Division and the College at University of Chicago. Slauter is the author of&nbsp;The State as a Work of Art: The Cultural Origins of the Constitution, essays on the language of rights and equality in early America, and a forthcoming book on the origins, meanings, and afterlives of the Declaration of Independence. The Newberry's copy of the Declaration is a rare broadside from Newport, Rhode Island, mistakenly dated June 13 rather than July 13, 1776, that demonstrates how supporters and opponents of independence might have first encountered the empire-shattering news.&nbsp;Only in August 1776, as the document began to circulate in Europe, did delegates of Congress sign the famous handwritten parchment scroll currently at the National Archives.&nbsp; Other exhibition items include:<ul><li>A 1776 map of America;</li><li>A revolutionary timeline dedicated to Benjamin Franklin;</li><li>One of the first petitions by enslaved people to circulate widely in print;</li><li>Notes of a meeting between members of Congress and representatives of Native nations taken by Thomas Paine;</li><li>The biography of Deborah Sampson, a woman who disguised herself as a man to fight in the army.</li></ul> Free and Independent&nbsp;will be on view in the Hanson Gallery through July 18’s NewberryFest open house celebration, and is part of an array of programs and events related to the 250th&nbsp;anniversary of the Declaration. The Newberry is proud to be a partner in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.il250.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" target="_blank">Illinois America 250</a>, an inclusive, statewide effort to bring together Illinoisans’ diverse perspectives about our history – and our future. Learn more at:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newberry.org/the-newberry-observes-america-250" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" target="_blank">https://www.newberry.org/the-newberry-observes-america-250.</a> Free Public Programs being held along with the exhibition include: <a href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/coffee-nation" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" target="_blank">May 7, 6pm</a>“Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States.” Presenters: Author Michelle McDonald in conversation with curator and scholar Eric Slauter. Coffee Nation challenges traditional interpretations of the American Revolution, as coffee’s spectacular profitability in US markets and popularity on the new nation’s tables by the mid-nineteenth century was the antithesis of independence.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/allen-stephenson-conversation" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" target="_blank">June 6, 2pm</a>Annual Colonial History Program: “The Declaration of Independence.” Discussants: Scholar/author Danielle Allen (Harvard University) and historian Scott Stephenson (Museum of the American Revolution), in partnership with Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Illinois. The discussion will be followed by a book signing of Dr. Allen’s latest book,&nbsp;Radical Duke.&nbsp;Reproduction artifacts from the Museum of the American Revolution will be available for viewing, including a recreation of George Washington’s tent in Washington Square Park, located across the street from the Newberry’s main entrance. <a href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/declaration-reading" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" target="_blank">July 8, 5pm</a>Sharing the Spirit of America: A Statewide &amp; National Reading of the Declaration of Independence Gather with special guests, fellow visitors, and library staff for a live, simultaneous nationwide public reading of the Declaration of Independence with one and all in Chicago and across the country. <a href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/newberryfest-250" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" target="_blank">July 18, 10am</a>NewberryFest: 250 Years of the United States Learn more about the history and legacy of the American Revolution by exploring our collection and try your own hand at historical calligraphy techniques. Celebrate all things Newberry with collection presentations, hands-on activities, tours, a mini used book sale, and so much more at this open house event. Image: Declaration of Independence broadside, Newport, RI: Solomon Southwick, 1776, VAULT Case broadside E221 .U57.

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