Barbara Rossi: Fantastic Forms

August 1 – October 25, 2026

Barbara Rossi (American, 1940–2023) was a key figure among the Chicago Imagists, a group of artists that uniquely blended sources ranging from Surrealism to the grotesque. Her compositions are fantastical in nature, featuring distorted and misshapen forms that sometimes suggest alien figures or body parts imbued with a sense of whimsy. Drawing inspiration from pop culture imagery, Indian miniature painting, and more, Rossi’s work often embodies the tension between representation and abstraction.

Drawn primarily from the CMA Collection, this exhibition of approximately 20 works explores the artist’s experiments in drawing and printmaking, mediums that fully reveal Rossi’s intuitive and methodical process. Rossi built her drawings from the center of the page, organically developing images that were simultaneously familiar and foreign. Her systematic approach to drawing also extended to painting and printmaking, where the artist willfully adopted challenging and meticulous processes. The resulting artwork is rich both in terms of its visual power and psychological intrigue.

^{Image at top:
Barbara Rossi
Male of Sorrows #1 (detail), 1970
Etching and aquatint on paper. Image: 14 x 11 in. 
Columbia Museum of Art. A gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc., CMA 2022.5.13}