Evelyn Statsinger

Evelyn Statsinger produced work across a range of media and styles, moving from figuration in her early work of the 1940s to abstraction by the 1950s and throughout the rest of her career. As her subject matter shifted, her practice turned from one primarily focused on line and pattern, to one that explored form, volume, and color. Her breakout large-scale ink drawings, which she created while still a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), garnered almost instantaneous success and notoriety, going on near immediate view at the Art Institute of Chicago when Statsinger was just 25 years old.

A 1946 visit to the museum inspired Statsinger to enroll at SAIC, where she matriculated with a BAE (bachelor of the arts in education) just three years later. SAIC was uniquely supportive of women as both instructors and students. Among the renowned female faculty with whom Statsinger studied was artist and art historian Kathleen Blackshear, who encouraged students to consider art outside of the Western canon and beyond the art museum’s walls. Evidence of Statsinger’s interest in Oceanic and African art can be found in the patterns throughout her iconic The Flower and the Sword (1947), which also integrates iconography inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry from medieval Europe. Statsinger incorporated the textures, colors, and quality of light she observed in nature into her later work, such as Sound Raga (Fall) (1977), named after the Indian musical tradition related to the seasons. Her experimentation with a range of media, including monoprints, photograms, drawing, painting, and elaborate sketchbooks—continued over the course of her career.

Statsinger participated in Exhibition Momentum (in 1948, 1950, and 1952), a seminal artist-organized exhibition series. Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe juried the series in 1950 and recommended Statsinger to Katharine Kuh, the Art Institute’s inaugural curator of modern art, leading to Statsinger’s first solo exhibition. Held at the museum in 1951, it featured several monumental drawings, which often took Statsinger up to six months to complete given their intricate mark making. That same year, Statsinger was awarded the Joseph Eisendrath Prize at the 55th Annual Chicago and Vicinity show.

In addition to sustaining a lifelong friendship with artist Miyoko Ito, captured by their rich correspondence preserved within the Ryerson and Burnham archives, Statsinger also served as an important informal mentor to a rich pool of young School of the Art Institute graduates, including Philip Hanson, Christina Ramberg, Suellen Rocca, and Karl Wirsum. Her co-creation of exquisite corpse drawings, celebrated in Four Chicago Artists: Theodore Halkin, Evelyn Statsinger, Barbara Rossi and Christina Ramberg, illustrates these artists’ overlapping interests and artistic approaches, evident in their composite drawings that instead appear seamless.