Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles
“You see the form of the architecture, then you come upon the artwork and the furnishings. I try to tie everything into the existing structure.”
Alice Shaddle 1978
“You put yourself in 1892 and then you realize it’s quite a modern house.”
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“You see the form of the architecture, then you come upon the artwork and the furnishings. I try to tie everything into the existing structure.”
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Judith Neisser and Sue Gray, “Home is where the art is,” Chicago, August 1978, p. 104
Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles March 23 – June 16, 2024
Curatorial team: Nicholas C. Lowe, Lisa Stone, Dana Boutin, Charles Baum, Cain Baum
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Alice Shaddle worked in many media, focusing on particular modes and materials, meticulously and intensively, resulting in highly resolved bodies of work. She was fearless in her experimentation with media, creating daring paper sculptures, elaborate floor installations, paintings, prints, drawings, reliefs, boxed objects, and all manner of collages. She had a disciplined practice of creating and mailing many hundreds of collage/gifts for her family and close friends. She wrote poetry, and was deeply inspired by nature––particularly plant life––and her garden was a haven.
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As a resident, mother, homemaker, and placemaker, Shaddle was creatively engaged in her life in Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1892 George Blossom House, where she lived for over five decades. She interacted with Wright’s early Prairie School idiom, responding to its design through specific furnishings, engaging its architectural features and elements in her work. She meticulously conserved and championed this seminal structure. She occupied it and it occupied her.​​
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Shaddle exhibited widely, especially in Chicago and the vicinity. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Illinois State Museum, and in many private collections.
It’s fitting that her first solo exhibition in many years is at the Hyde Park Art Center—a beating heart in Shaddle’s world.
Alice Shaddle in the George Blossom House dining room, c.1960s. Her sculpture Cake Stand (1967) appears in the background.
Detail, Moon Shadows vellum floor installation, 1984, cut paper, mesh, construction paper circles, approximately 42 in. diameter. Collection of Cain Baum.
“...metaphors of the transitory...”
"metaphors of the transitory"
These expressionistic three dimensional forms move through metaphors of the transitory by the automatic and immediate use of medium and imagery.
Alice Shaddle, 1974
Until 2021 we had only vaguely heard of Alice Shaddle. A brief viewing of stacks of her works in her family’s collection drew us into the endless magic she spun with uncountable pieces of paper and many other media. As we explored her range of strikingly original techniques and frequently bewildering modes of construction, we were increasingly baffled that—like many once well-known artists—she had slipped from public view. Over the past two years, we’ve contemplated the formidable task of distilling part of her immense oeuvre into this exhibition and catalog.
The exhibition is not a retrospective or even a survey. Rather, it is a selection of works from distinct periods of Shaddle’s career drawn together by compelling aspects of the conceptual, material, and formal choices evident in the work itself. Individual works interrelate thematically across the gallery and through the catalog. These include (in the order of her working phases): a daring, early papier maché bas-relief collage sculpture (The Birthday Cake, front cover); documentation and remnants from Shaddle’s elaborate, immersive paper and vellum floor installations (Moon Shadowsinstallation view) and related large scale colored pencil drawings (Title Unknown (Smoke series); shadow boxes with haunting visages (Title unknown (Skull); a group of meticulously constructed cut paper collage compositions (The Broken Harpy); and a selection collaged correspondence.
These expressionistic three dimensional forms move through metaphors of the transitory by the automatic and immediate use of medium and imagery. ( Cara Glatt, the herald, Wednesday, august 12, 1981 page 17 )
Working closely with Shaddle’s son Charles Baum and grandson Cain Baum, the project naturally retains strong connections to family. We have appreciated their support and unceasing enthusiasm at every stage, introducing ideas into our work, the exhibition, and the catalog—which itself was conceived and constructed as a collage-of-sorts, layering the perspectives of family, artists, and others involved in the project with archival materials reflective of Shaddle’s life and our process.
It is our honor and pleasure, through Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles, to reintroduce Shaddle to new audiences in Chicago. The opportunity of being hosted by the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC), where Shaddle taught and exhibited, and in the neighborhood where Shaddle’s practice was centered for over 50 years, provides rich context and underscores her connection to this place. Circles are a leitmotif throughout Shaddle’s work and in this exhibition. We hope the exhibition, catalog, and online archive will reflect Shaddle’s creative spirit and be ripples bringing her life and work into fuller circles.​​
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For extensive information on Alice Shaddle’s life, works, and exhibitions, see the online archive, www.shaddlebaumarchive.com
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Nicholas Lowe, Lisa Stone and Dana Boutin
One of the pleasures of unpacking Shaddle’s personal
and professional documents is the opportunity
to peruse and muse on unexpected threads.
Dana Boutin 2024
Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles
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The catalog was produced with support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, as part of Art Design Chicago 2024, an exploration of Chicago’s art and design legacy.
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Published by Green Lantern Press/Hyde Park Art Center.
Catalog lead: Dana Boutin
Editors: Dana Boutin, Nicholas Lowe, Lisa Stone
Design: Ashley M. Freeby
ISBN: 978-0-9977756-9-3
Copyright 2024 Hyde Park Art Center
The Shaddle Baum Archive offers scholars and curators infinite possibilities for exhibitions, theses,
analyses, and further musings on the modestly magisterial
art of Alice Shaddle.”
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Lisa Stone 2024
Two videos featuring archival materials were included in the exhibition to add contextual details relating to Alice Shaddle's work and life.
Video 1. Installations 1977 – 1984 (10:02 min.)
Documentation of Alice Shaddle’s seven elaborate, immersive floor installations of delicately shaped vellum objects mixed with materials found in nature, created and exhibited from 1978 to 1984.
Video 2. Alice Shaddle and The George Blossom House (5:05 min.)
Photographs of the George Blossom House, an 1892 Frank Lloyd Wright design (known as one of his “bootleg” houses, done while still employed by Louis Henri Sullivan). The stately Georgian exterior contains Wright’s stunning Prairie School interior. Shaddle occupied the house fully, for over five decades. She interacted with Wright’s early Prairie School idiom, responding to its design through specific furnishings, and engaging its architectural features and elements in her work.