The Midwest Museum of American Art is pleased to announce the recent gift of five (5) works by Barbara Rossi from the Kohler Foundation, Inc.
Barbara Rossi (September 20, 1940 – August 24, 2023) was an American artist, one of the original Chicago Imagists, a group that in the 1960s and 1970s turned to representational art. She first exhibited with them at the Hyde Park Art Center in 1969. She is known for meticulously rendered drawings and cartoonish paintings, as well as a personal vernacular. She worked primarily by making reverse paintings on plexiglass that reference lowbrow and outsider art. Rossi was a teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her works are exhibited in several permanent art museum collections.
The Kohler Foundation was established in 1940. As Kohler Foundation has expanded and grown, so has their support for the arts and education. Since the 1970’s, the preservation of art environments, folk architecture, and collections by self-taught artists has been a major focus of Kohler Foundation. The Kohler Foundation is active outside of Wisconsin with preserved art environments in Louisiana, Kansas, Ohio, Maine, and Georgia. Over the past several years, gifts of art have been made to nearly 100 institutions ranging from prestigious museums to colleges and universities and other non-profits both small and large. This ensures the art will be cared for in perpetuity and made accessible to the public. Collections have included art created by self-taught and relatively unknown artists as well as prominent artists who are recognized regionally and/or nationally.