Liesl Olson on Chicago Avant-Garde: Five Women Ahead of Their Time

November Evening Program

Presented by the Caxton Club and the Union League Club of Chicago

Join Liesl Olson for a discussion of Chicago Avant-Garde: Five Women Ahead of Their Time, an exhibition currently on view at the Newberry Library. The exhibition tells the stories of painter Gertrude Abercrombie, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, choreographers Katherine Dunham and Ruth Page, and curator Katharine Kuh in the period between the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Communist scare of the 1950s. Unafraid of subverting convention, the women of Chicago Avant-Garde creatively challenged the limitations placed on them because of their gender. They found freedom in poetry, dance, exhibitions, and visual art. Committed to making and supporting provocative art that would activate social change, they took radical risks. Inspired and challenged by Chicago, they helped transform the city into a hub of avant-garde experimentation. 

Designed by graphic artists Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi of Sonnenzimmer and letterpress printer Ben Blount, the catalog for Chicago Avant-Garde includes more than 75 photographs, an engaging and deeply researched essay by Liesl Olson, and powerful new poems dedicated to each of the five avant-gardists by Chicago-based poet and educator Eve L. Ewing. 

Liesl Olson is Director of Chicago Studies at the Newberry. Her research interests include twentieth-century literature, modernism, critical theory, feminism, and the visual arts. 

Click here to order the catalog through the Rosenberg Bookshop at the Newberry.

$23 including a signed bookplate, sales tax, and discounted shipping.

You must use discount code CAXTON for the special pricing.

2021–2022 Caxton Club grant recipients will be announced during this program.