Here we have a rare original exhibition poster for Exquisite Corpse, a group show at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. Artists Donley, Ferstman, Harris, Martin, and Reynolds. Opening night January 10th, 8–10pm, running through February 15th. No year printed on the poster, but everything about it. The typography, the searing high-contrast photography, the energy…all of it screams late 1960s Chicago art scene.
The design is by E H Smith, credited in small type at the bottom corner. Whoever E H Smith was, they knocked it out of the park. The image is a collage grid of cropped, blown-out faces — fragmented, overlapping, intense. It looks like the Surrealist parlor game it’s named after come to life in a printing press. Part protest art. Part punk before punk. Entirely its own thing.
The Hyde Park Art Center at 5236 South Blackstone was a legendary incubator for Chicago artists. This is a piece of that wild world.
The poster measures approximately 17” wide by 22” tall. It is in excellent vintage condition. Clean, bright, flat. No pinholes. The reverse is stamped with the Hyde Park Art Center address. This one was stored well.
Please see all pics as they are part of the description. I ship posters USPS to street addresses only (no PO boxes). The poster will be shipped rolled in a tube. Free shipping.
Chicago art. Hyde Park grit. Five artists. One h*ll of a poster.
