Annelise K. Madsen
Annelise K. Madsen, Gilda and Henry Buchbinder Curator, Arts of the Americas, joined the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and specializes in US painting, sculpture, and visual culture. She is particularly interested in elevating historical women artists—studying artworks in the permanent collection, stewarding acquisitions, developing exhibitions and programming, and presenting new research in an effort to recover and revalue the contributions and stories of female makers. She is co-curator of Georgia O’Keeffe: “My New Yorks” (2024–25). She is also preparing an exhibition on Mary Cassatt. Annelise curated and authored John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age (2018) and has co-curated and contributed to a number of other exhibitions and publications at the Art Institute. Additionally, she has contributed essays to such publications as Women Building History: Public Art at the 1893 Columbian Exposition (2011), American Art, and Winterthur Portfolio. Annelise holds a PhD in art history from Stanford University and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis.
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Skyscraper Living: Georgia O’Keeffe and the Shelton Hotel
An unexpected move to a residential high-rise gave O’Keeffe a new perspective on nature and the built environment.
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Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Trailblazing Chicago Sculptor
Curator Annelise K. Madsen remembers the career of the turn of the 20th-century sculptor, her training and robust support in Chicago, and her evolution from working in plaster to casting her pieces in bronze.
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Multiple Modernisms in the Americas: Old Favorites and New Stories
Four curators share their favorite elements of the newly reimagined galleries and the deeper, richer, more entwined narratives they tell.
Elizabeth McGoey, Andrew James Hamilton, Annelise K. Madsen, and Sarah Kelly Oehler -
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Fernand Lungren, Illuminated: In the Café and the City of Lights
Curator Annelise K. Madsen sheds lights on an American artist who captured the spirit of a changing Paris.
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Air as Sustenance: Four Artworks That Celebrate Breath
Four writers select works from four continents in an exploration of the involuntary but essential act of taking in air.
Madhuvanti Ghose, Annelise K. Madsen, Carl Fuldner, and Janet M. Purdy -
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Stilled Life: The Hands and Face of Abraham Lincoln by Leonard Volk
Curator Annelise K. Madsen ponders how the life casts of Abraham Lincoln’s face and hands—objects with an uncanny presence—offer an opportunity to rethink and reimagine our collective past.
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In Good Company: Theresa Bernstein’s The Milliners
Curator Annelise K. Madsen discusses a painting by an artist whose large, bold pictures drew uncommon attention when first displayed.
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Cassatt’s Modern Vision of the Everyday: The Child’s Bath
Curator Annelise K. Madsen explores how Mary Cassatt created one of the era’s most recognizable icons.
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Redefining American Art: Scraping the Sky in Gallery 271
Our trio of American art curators continues our tour through the reinstalled galleries.
Sarah Kelly Oehler, Elizabeth McGoey, and Annelise K. Madsen -
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Reconfiguring American Art: Gazelles in Gallery 272
There were multiple approaches to experiments leading up to modernism.
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Rethinking American Art: Swooning in Gallery 273
A gallery reinstallation that has been years in the planning and the subject of countless hours of conversations and thought.
Sarah Kelly Oehler, Elizabeth McGoey, and Annelise K. Madsen -
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To Sargent, Forever on the Go
Annelise K. Madsen