Remembering Art Green 1941-2025 | Fine Arts | University of ��ݮ��Ƶ

Art Green was born in 1941 in Frankfort, Indiana to a civil engineer father and a mother who combined colours and textures in patchwork quilt and flower gardens. He would later credit their combined influence for the visual language of his paintings.

He entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to study industrial design but by the second semester had abandoned that to pursue a major in painting and drawing. Chicago itself had a huge influence on young Art and he absorbed the city’s architecture, museums, galleries, music and culture. In 1966, while pursuing his MFA, he was invited to join an exhibition with five other young artists - James Falconer, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Suellen Rocca, and Karl Wirsum. They dubbed themselves the and the group would become iconic in the Chicago art scene.

The next few years involved teaching (first grade 7 art and then at colleges in Chicago and Evanston) while the reputation of the Hairy Who, and their place among the Chicago Imagists continued to grow. However, in 1969 Art married Natalie Novotny and headed to Canada to take a teaching position at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Several years in Halifax were followed by time in Vancouver and Toronto until a one-year sabbatical replacement contract brought him to the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ in 1977. That was followed by the offer of a three-year (probationary tenure track) contract, which he accepted. Art wrote, “I had enjoyed the year’s teaching and the students, who were generally smart, sincere and eager for faculty instruction and advice. The other faculty members were a varied and individualistic lot, and we got along well. We were a somewhat obscure department in an engineering / mathematics / computer science school, and we stuck together like a family.” (from Art’s My work and welcome to it… an annotated catalogue of my paintings)

Two people move a skeleton in a cardboard box into a room under construction.

Art remained at ��ݮ��Ƶ until his retirement in 2006. He was a fundamental player in the creation of the MFA program, served as department chair twice, received a distinguished Teacher Award in 1990 and was given Faculty emeritus status in 2006. In 2016 he received an honorary doctorate of Fine Arts from The Art Institute of Chicago. But more significant than any of that was the influence his teaching, encouragement and kindness had on three decades of students in the Fine Arts Department.

After retirement Art continued his painting career and benefitted from a renewed interest in the Chicago art scene. Over the years his work has been the subject of over 26 solo exhibitions, featured in more than 120 group exhibitions, and in 2005, the Kitchener-��ݮ��Ƶ Art Gallery, Ontario mounted Heavy Weather, the artist’s first career retrospective. His paintings can be found in the collections of major museums around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.), and Museum Moderner Kunst (Vienna, Austria). He is represented by the Garth Greenan Gallery in New York City, NY.

Art is survived by his children Catherine Gardner (Mark) and Nicholas Green (Clodagh), his beloved granddaughters Sophia Gardner, Feodora and Fionnuala Green; his partner Bonnie Steinman and her family; his brother Don Green (Charlotte); his sisters-in-law Nadia Leininger, Nina Minett (Charles), Karen Green, and many nieces and nephews. He is predeceased by his wife of over 50 years, Natalie Novotny Green, his brother, Larry Green, and his parents Edward and Mabel Green. ()

“I have often described my ideal viewer as someone with time on their hands (perhaps fighting off a lingering head cold) who has tired of critiquing TV shows and of mentally sorting out the repeats in the wall paper, who also takes a similar approach to examining my work – seeing patterns, making connection, sorting out layers, interpreting the imagery and questioning my motives". - from the artist statement in Heavy Weather: Art Green Retrospective catalogue (2005).

Art, Ann Roberts and friend, moving into East Campus Hall (photo from UW Gazette, Sept. 23, 1987)

Art at work in his studio (photo by Robin Wilhelm, The Beacon Herald, Nov. 14, 1991)

Painting of an ice cream cone pulled apart to reveal flames and laced to the outside edges of the painting.

"Saturated Fat" 1971, oil on canvas, approx. 6.5’x4’, private collection. (image courtesy of the artist)

Four people draw on boards propped against the outside of a building.

Welcome back event September 2001.

Colourful, octagonal painting of multiple overlapping transparent images.

“Alter Piece” 1987, oil on canvas over wood, approx. 48”x48” (image courtesy of the artist)

Painting of a stylized figure sitting cross-legged between two smoke stacks.

“Examine The Facts, Consider The Options, Apply The Logic” (originally titled “The Undeniable Logician”) 1966, oil on canvas, 89.25”x68”, collection of the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago. (image courtesy of the artist)

Figure in a white goalie masks holds a coffee cup while the person beside laughs while working on an abstract painting.

Art Green in his "marking" attire. (photo by Jan Uhde ca. 2000)

Intensely coloured painting or two large grinders behind smaller paintings of a tornado and red-painted fingernails.

Critical Mass (installation view from "Heavy Weather") 1982, oil on canvas, oil on wood, 54" x 96" x 24", collection of the artist (image courtesy of the artist)