Description: Gladys Nilsson's humorous and exuberant observations of everyday life.
A long-overdue monograph, Gleefully Askew brings together the iconic works of Gladys Nilsson, including watercolors, paintings, drawings, and prints from critical moments in her sixty-year career. The lushly illustrated publication includes new scholarship that highlights Nilsson's contributions to postwar and contemporary art. Well-known for watercolors of long-limbed figures engaged in everyday micro-dramas, Nilsson's works earned her a reputation as the most "feminine" member of Chicago's Hairy Who group in the 1960s--a characterization she has challenged and spoofed throughout her career. Nilsson's self-reflexive and often humorous approach has guided her experimental practice, which also includes Plexiglas paintings, mixed-media collage, and embroidery hoop paintings, all of which are reproduced in this comprehensive retrospective catalogue.Brief description: Francesca Wilmott is a curator at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, A World History of Women Photographers, Wayne Thiebaud, Marcel Broodthaers: A Retrospective, and Yoko Ono: One Woman Show.