Suburban Spotlight: Skokie, Glencoe, Highland Park and Northbrook
SKOKIE
In downtown Skokie, north of Chicago but still on the city’s CTA, (northern)Western Exhibitions is Western Exhibitions’ second location. Its primary space is on Chicago Ave. in West Town. The Skokie space will have around five specially curated exhibitions a year featuring works by artists from the gallery’s 20-year history. The second exhibition at the space to date, on view through May 6, features work by married artist collaborators Miller & Shellabarger, who use self-portraiture, laborious material processes, and considered craftsman ship to meditate on love and death.
An exhibition of stone figures and mud drawings by Lilli Carré is on view through August 13.
The gallery is one half of a renovated single-floor bow truss building that is also part store – occupied by the also-newly opened WHO Modern, a mid-century modern-focused vintage source co-run by Donald Schmaltz, formerly of auction houses Toomey & Co. and HINDMAN, and art collector Zach Williams, who owns the building. Who Modern offers rare and unusual decorative objects, furniture, and art from the mid-20th C. to today, featuring iconic designs by Ettore Sottsass, Angelo Mangiarotti, Enzo Mari, Poul, Kjaerholm and Hans Wegner, shown alongside contemporary designers. Williams says he will add modern and outsider art to the mix as well. By sharing the building, the two spaces complement each other’s offerings and can draw from the mix of visitors who come for art as well as vintage design.
GLENCOE
Anne Loucks Gallery at the corner of Green Bay Rd. and Park Ave. in Glencoe opened in 2001 and specializes in contemporary American painting, photography and works on paper by emerging and mid-career artists in a range of styles and mediums, most notably abstract art and rural landscapes. Many, but not all, gallery artists come from the surrounding suburbs.
Down the same block is Alan Koppel Gallery’s second location, which brings bring modern and contemporary masterworks as well as furniture and design to the North Shore. Koppel has long been in River North on Dearborn St. Recent North Shore exhibitions have included Diane Arbus: A Secret about a Secret, and The Photography of Vivian Maier.
HIGHLAND PARK
The Art Center Highland Park is a suburban cultural center, presenting changing, simultaneous exhibitions in multiple galleries and featuring local, international, emerging, and established artists as well as community-focused programming. Other events taking place include annual benefits, monthly artist talks, collaborations with other local cultural arts providers and public arts classes. In 2022 The Art Center devoted select programming to the 4th of July shooting in Highland Park.
NORTHBROOK
Art Post Gallery opened in the 1980s. Originally a framing and art supply store in downtown Northbrook – Art Post – current owner Chris Bates purchased the store and changed the name to “Art Post Gallery” and immediately upgraded the framing, eliminated the art supplies and began building a collection of original art. In 1987, she moved to Carillon Square in Glenview and expanded the business. She moved the gallery to its present location in 2012. The gallery is set to host an exhibition featuring lost photographs of John Lennon over the course of one weekend in June.
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