Chicago has for decades been one of the most prominent cities where European surrealism is avidly collected and displayed. However, before now, there had not been a scholarly exhibition and catalogue addressing the local manifestations of this international mode of art.

A Home for Surrealism: Fantastic Painting in Midcentury Chicago focuses on a select group of painters whose work in the 1940s and 50s both transformed the domestic and domesticated the surrealist, particularly in Chicago. Working independently but within a chain of social and artistic relationships, this group explored the interior as a site of projected imagination and fantasy, and the self as the generator of such altered perception. With contributions by Robert Cozzolino, Adam Jolles, and Joanna Pawlik, the book provides a richly illustrated account of an international movement’s unlikely—but somehow ever so fitting—home in America.

This catalogue is published by The University of Chicago Press.