Art for which the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than the finished art object.&nbsp;

Conceptual / Performance

<h3>Developed during the Italian Renaissance, primarily for aesthetics or beauty, the highest art was that which allowed the full expression and display of the artist's imagination.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – Pre 18th Century

<h3>Graphic Art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional. It includes calligraphy, photography, painting, typography, computer graphics, and bindery.&nbsp;</h3>

Graphic Art

Works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects.

Artists' Books

The exploration of video art and music or sound set, including visual music, abstract film, audiovisual performances and installations.

Video / Sound

The objects produced by shaping pieces of clay that are then hardened by baking, or the skill of making such objects.

Ceramics

An artistic form in which hard or plastic materials are carved, modeled, casted, and constructed into a three-dimensional art object.&nbsp;

Sculpture

The process of creating artworks by printing, typically on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting.

Printmaking

<h3>Something made in an earlier period that is collected and considered to have value because it is beautiful, rare, old, or of high quality.</h3>

Antiques and Artifacts

Imagery where the subject matter centers around a view or depiction of Chicago.&nbsp;

Chicago Scenes & Regionalism

Old Masters refer to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800.

Old Masters

Socio-Political art is used to help the public understand a particular social or political issue.

Socio-Political

<h3>The attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, or implausible, exotic, and supernatural elements.</h3>

Realism

<h3>Artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real objects and is representational.</h3>

Figurative

<h3>Individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. Glass art ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces, to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including glass jewelry and tableware.</h3>

Glass

<h3>Artwork that often deals with Rococo, the Enlightenment, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – 18th & 19th C.

From the Tate Museum's website: Modernism refers to a global movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the twentieth century sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists around the world used new imagery, materials and techniques to create artworks that they felt better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.

Modernism

<h3>Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue to challenge boundaries.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – Contemporary

<h3>Art that is concerned with the design and decoration of objects that are chiefly prized for their utility, rather than for their purely aesthetic qualities including, ceramics, glassware, metalware, furniture, textiles, clothing, and more.</h3>

Furniture & Decorative Arts

<h3>Emerging art is work by artists who are still building their artistic careers and have not yet reached a more established and widely recognized status.&nbsp;</h3>

Emerging

<h3>Fiber art refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labour on the part of the artist as part of the works' significance, and prioritizes aesthetic value over utility.</h3>

Fiber Arts / Textiles

The quality of dealing with ideas rather than events. Freedom from representational qualities in art.

Abstraction

<h3>Art by African-American artists.</h3>

African-American

<h3>The art and science of designing and making buildings, or the style of a building.</h3>

Architecture

<h3>Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, an emphasis on light and its changing qualities, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience.</h3>

Impressionism

From the Tate Museum's website: Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often characterized by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity.

Abstract Expressionism

Numismatics

Relating to Africa or people of African descent.

African

Eastern European art is a product of recent history. It can be traced to the division of Europe into the Western and Soviet spheres of influence of the allied victory over Germany in World War two.

Eastern European

LGBTQIA+

Feminist

Considered one of the most influential periods of art, featuring movements including Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism.

Early 20th Century

Skill and experience, especially in relation to making objects by hand.

Craft

<h3>The skill of making plans, drawings, or arrangements to show how a building or product is made.</h3>

Design

Asian art is diverse and rich, spanning thousands of years and dozens of countries. It is known for its ritual bronzes, beautiful ceramics, calligraphy, jades, textiles, painted landscapes, garden design, pagodas and stupas, and woodblock prints.

Asian

Italian

<h3>An artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space.</h3>

Installations

An art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance.

Performance

Some of the most prominent, highly influential artists, who challenged preconceptions and pushed the limits of visual art, shaping the art world of our time.

Modern Contemporary Masters

Created in accordance with the vision of the artist as a photographer, using photography as a medium to bring something to life that only lives in the artist's mind.

Photography

The design movement in interior, product, graphic design, architecture, and urban development from roughly the 1930's to 1965.

Mid-Century

A movement in art and literature that flourished in the early 20th-century. Surrealism aimed at expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control.&nbsp;

Surrealism

An innovative discipline which seeks to unify a large range of art forms. This is creatively achieved by combining an array of artistic insights and crafts such as film, literature, performance, music and sound, drama, visual arts, or design.

Multi-Media

<h3>The depiction of landscapes in art—natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composition.</h3>

Landscape

Plein air is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look.

Plein-air

Printed 2-D artwork which is designed to be affixed to a vertical surface, may consist exclusively of images, or images and text.

Poster / Lithography

<h3>A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person.</h3>

Portraits / Portraiture

<h3>These works are often stunningly beautiful, and encourage the viewer to engage with the rich history of research and experimentation that led to the piece’s conception.</h3>

Scientific

<h3>The Art of the American West is defined by geographical subject, consists of historic and contemporary works of art which focus on varying expressions of individuals, landscapes, ideals, and myths of the American West.</h3>

Western (The American West)

<h3>Borrowed from Wikipedia: In visual arts, music, and other mediums, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It derives from the reductive aspects of modernism and is often interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism and a bridge to postminimal art practices.</h3>

Minimalism

<h3>Occupying the space between fine art and the everyday, functional art refers to aesthetic objects that serve utilitarian purposes. The genre is remarkably inclusive, it encompasses everything from furniture and lighting to dishes and even books.</h3>

Functional Art - Jewelry / Fashion

A range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works.

Wildlife / Nature

Watches & Timepieces

Sports Collectibles

3-Dimensonal

Rare Books / Manuscripts

Western European art represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production. After the mid-19th century modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.

Western European

Comics

Large Scale (over 6')

Visual art created in public locations, usually unsanctioned artwork executed outside of the context of traditional art venues. Common forms and media include spray paint graffiti, stencil graffiti, poster art, sticker art, street installations, and sculpture.

Pop / Street Art / Graffiti

Indigenous & Native

Chicago Imagists

East Asian

Medieval / Renaissance 

Non-Western

Southeast & South Asian

<h3>Art produced by self-taught or naïve art makers. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.</h3>

Folk / Outsider / Self Taught

American Regionalism

Literary Arts

Mosiac

Includes manuscripts, prints, drawings, collages, and paintings on paper.

Works on Paper

Prints and Drawings

West Asia  & North Africa

Middle Eastern & Islamic

Land Art

<h3>Artistic expression of Mexico, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, as well as Latin and Hispanic Americans living in other regions. Latin American art has roots in the many different indigenous cultures that inhabited the Americas before European colonization in the 16th-century.</h3>

Hispanic/Latinx

Since opening in 2004, Corbett vs. Dempsey has presented a range of international artists as well as artists connected with the historical and contemporary legacy of Chicago. The gallery’s mission has included extensive exploration of widely known artists, including Ellen Berkenblit, Brian Calvin, Arturo Herrera, Charline von Heyl, Dick Higgins, Rebecca Morris, Albert Oehlen, Joyce Pensato, Arlene Shechet, and Christopher Wool, supporting emerging and mid-career figures including Christina Forrer, Gabrielle Garland, Magalie Guérin, David Hartt, Celeste Rapone, Rebecca Shore, Lui Shtini, Cauleen Smith, John Sparagana, Omar Velázquez, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, and championing artists of critical significance to post-war Chicago including Margot Bergman, Dominick Di Meo, Edward Flood, Philip Hanson, Thomas H. Kapsalis, Robert Lostutter, Christina Ramberg, Diane Simpson, Karl Wirsum, and Jimmy Wright.&nbsp;Creative music has always been a feature of the gallery’s activities; in addition to having its own record label, CvsD is proud to represent Peter Brötzmann and the estate of Sun Ra.Member Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA).&nbsp;Image: Installation view of Christopher Wool, February 8–March 30, 2019. Photo: Robert Chase Heishman.&nbsp;

Corbett vs. Dempsey

Founded in 2001, Anne Loucks Gallery specializes in contemporary American painting, photography and works on paper by emerging and mid-career artists in a range of styles and mediums.&nbsp;Celebrating our 24th year, the gallery curates twelve exhibitions annually and offers art advisory, framing and installation services. Represented artists include: Tracey Adams, Victoria Adams, March Avery, Liz Barber, Rodger Bechtold, Charlie Bluett, Pegan Brooke, Jamie Brunson, David Burdeny, Hannah Bureau, Brian Coleman, Madeline Denaro, Stephen Dinsmore, Lori Glavin, Lyle Gomes, Bernd Haussmann, Stephanie Henderson, Scott Ingram, Joshua Jensen-Nagle, Sherry Karver, Laurie Victor Kay, Richard Kooyman, Yaz Krehbiel, Sara MacCulloch, Cheryl Maeder, John McCormick, Maggie Meiners, Sally Michel, Eleanor Miller, Grace Munakata, Jenny Nelson, Marshall Noice, Mary Jo O’Gara, Sandy Ostrau, Melanie Parke, Lisa Ridgers, Maura Segal, Stephen Seinberg, Adam Siegel, Hunt Slonem, Rodney Smith and Leslie Wu. Image: Sally Michel, Interior with Plant, 1987, 40”x 50”

Anne Loucks Gallery

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery was established in 1976 by Roberta Lieberman and Robert Zolla within a then-desolate industrial neighborhood now known as the River North Gallery District. They transformed a vacant industrial space into a hub for contemporary art, laying the foundation for the thriving art community that the area is today.&nbsp; Now located at 325 W Huron St, William Lieberman continues to uphold the legacy of quality and professionalism established since the gallery’s founding. Z/L represents a diverse range of artists and genres that offer a dynamic view of contemporary art in Chicago. They are dedicated to providing personal attention to both beginning and established collectors, as well as other art professionals. Member Art&nbsp;Dealers Association&nbsp;of America (ADAA). Installation View of Lora Fosberg: I Love it Here, Let's Leave; in Search of the Hill (photography by Ian Ace Photography)

Zolla / Lieberman Gallery

The Evanston Art Center (EAC), founded over 95 years ago in 1929, is an integral part of community life, providing access and experiences in the arts to people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities. Through community-based events, classes and exhibitions, EAC helps expand its mission to provide accessible arts education and arts enrichment experiences to the community and the surrounding areas. The Evanston Art Center’s galleries exhibit contemporary artwork by emerging and established artists, and are free and open to the public seven days a week. Exhibition programming includes publications, artist talks, interviews with curators, opening receptions, In Focus lectures and docent led tours for groups (please call to schedule a tour) at no charge to the public. The Evanston Art Center’s in-person and online art courses have something for everyone and every schedule. Subjects include: painting, drawing, sculpting, jewelry, bookbinding, and much more! Browse our online adult and youth course schedule at <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.evanstonartcenter.org" target="_blank">EvanstonArtCenter.org</a> Opening receptions typically held on first Sunday of exhibition 1–4pm.&nbsp; Photo credit: Erica McKeehen

Evanston Art Center

Located in the heart of the River North Gallery District for 25 years, Addington Gallery focuses on dynamic contemporary painting, both abstract and representational, with many of the gallery’s artists staking their claim somewhere in between categories. Process and materials play a large role with most of the artists represented, who work in a wide range of contemporary styles, subjects, and media. The gallery offers a full range of services, including installation, painting restoration and conservation, framing consultation, and corporate curating. Receptions are typically held on the 1st Friday of every other month: January, March, May, July, Sept, Nov. Visit our website and sign–up for our mailing list to receive news about upcoming exhibitions. Image: Misha Goro, Van Buren and Wabash,&nbsp;oil on aluminum, 36” x 36”

Addington Gallery

2026 marks the 25th anniversary of Madron Gallery. Madron’s scholarship driven programming creates exhibitions and publications that champion the work of significant, yet often lesser-known artists in the history of art. With an interest in Jewish and Chicago artists, Madron’s inventory of 19th and 20th century paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, and prints—displayed en suite in our gallery alongside curated exhibitions of both historical and contemporary artists—illuminates artistic connections across decades. ﻿Exhibition essays and publications from the in-house Madron Press are available online. Free parking available. Image: Installation view of "Conversations in Abstraction" at Madron Gallery Fall of 2025.&nbsp;Image courtesy of Madron Gallery.&nbsp;

Madron Gallery

Artist Tony Fitzpatrick passed away on October 11, 2025. Read more <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/artist-tony-fitzpatrick-has-died-at-age-66" target="_blank">here</a>. Also read CGN's 2021 interview with Fitzpatrick <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/a-man-walks-into-a-museum-for-tony-fitzpatrick-2021-is-a-return-to-more-than-before" target="_blank">here</a>. Image:&nbsp;Tony Fitzpatrick,&nbsp;Our Joe, Chicago 1919

Tony Fitzpatrick Studio

Intimate East Erie Gallery established in 2022, specializes in legacy art from local and regional, contemporary artists, in a variety of mediums (oils, acrylics, pastels, watercolor, graphite, clay, mixed media) and styles (abstract and representational paintings, drawings, collage and ceramics). NO AI (Artificial Ingredients or Intelligence!). Our desire is to connect patrons and art lovers with original work, to add too or start their own collection, within an in-person experience.&nbsp; We are located in the Streeterville neighborhood, steps away from Michigan Ave., and housed in the newly land-marked, Erie Street Row Building, built in 1877. Exhibitions and events throughout the year. Visit our website for details. Image: Gallery Front Room Entrance

East Erie Gallery

Vivid Art Gallery showcases fine art in the Hubbard Woods Design District of Winnetka. We feature primarily paintings, works on paper, photography and ceramics from emerging and established artists. Our focus is on local and Midwest artists. Vivid presents a new exhibit each month, with First Friday openings.&nbsp; We provide a warm, welcoming, non-intimidating atmosphere where both new and experienced collectors can feel comfortable asking questions, pricing is transparent, and browsing is encouraged.&nbsp; Vivid is a full-service gallery, offering art consultation as well as delivery, framing and installation. First Friday openings 5-7pm (Second Friday in July)&nbsp; Image: Gallery view

Vivid Art Gallery

Located in the heart of Milwaukee, the Kim Storage Gallery is a vibrant space celebrating the creativity of Wisconsin and beyond. This gallery features a diverse mix of museum-quality artwork, ranging from innovative pieces by emerging local talents to esteemed works by established artists. It’s a dynamic hub where art enthusiasts can explore the evolving landscape of contemporary art in an inviting and accessible environment. Jan 2–Feb 14: Susan Hall. Opening Jan 16, 5–8pmFeb 27–Apr 10: Gabrielle Marie Stone. Opening Feb 27, 5-8pmApr 17–May 30: Katherine Steichen Rosing. Opening: Apr 17, 5-8pmJul 10–Aug 15: Color Play. Opening: July 17, 5-8pmAug 21–Sept 26: Tim Anderson. Opening: Aug 21, 5-8pmOct 2–Nov 7: Hector Acuna &amp; Andy Paczos. Opening: Oct 16, 5-8pmNov 13–Dec 19: Doug Fath. Opening: Nov 13, 5-8pm Image: Art by Paul Krainak

Kim Storage Gallery

VSG specializes in showcasing emerging and mid-career artists through solo presentations and group shows. We're located in Chicago's West Town Art District and are dedicated to fostering a vibrant community of creators, art enthusiasts and the patrons of tomorrow. Since opening in 2022, the gallery has garnered attention from prestigious publications like The New York Times and The Economist for its unique blend of humor and serious art presentations. Installation View: Oscar Joyo, 2025

VSG Contemporary

Discover the art you’ll live with and love. Judy Ferrara Gallery curates an ever-changing roster of contemporary artists featuring bold abstracts, lyrical landscapes, expressive works on paper, and more. Whether you’re a seasoned collector or just beginning, you’ll find personal service, thoughtful guidance, and original art in every size and price range. Please see CGN lising or gallery website for 2026 dates and details. Image: Gallery view

Judy Ferrara Gallery

ShadowBoxX Gallery is a new art space in Waukegan, IL, a northern suburb of Chicago. As founder and artist, Michael E. Voss fosters a community of artists celebrating the creativity that lives within us. ShadowBoxX Gallery honors the catharsis that artwork and creativity bring. ShadowBoxX Gallery is home to curated fine artwork from local, U.S. and international artists, hosting group and solo art exhibitions each month. ”The gold is in the shadow.” – Carl Jung Images by StudioJ Media <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1765498285/zwstvjuepzu36nvvvsli.jpg"> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1765498287/rq2ilz5snruc3vptyfkd.jpg"> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1765498288/onqu2g4npdhkuvdroc0z.jpg">

Figurative

Artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real objects and is representational.

Other Specialties

Chicago Gallery News