art collective the Hairy Who<\/a>, part of the Chicago Imagists movement.<\/p>\nIt wasn\u2019t until Nilsson moved to Sacramento with her husband and son that she was able to set herself apart from the Hairy Who. During her time in the city, Nilsson and her husband discovered a channel that would air old cartoons such as \u201cPopeye,\u201d and \u201cOlive Oyl\u201d which became big inspirations for her work.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at that particular moment in time, seeing \u2018Olive Oyl\u2019 could only have happened in Sacramento,\u201d said Nilsson.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s much about the exhibition that\u2019s unconventional. Upon entering the gallery there\u2019s a recreation of Nilsson and her husband\u2019s old Sacramento living room complete with a custom-made couch in a retro-geometric design and faded \u201870s wallpaper. Visitors are invited to sit and watch a video of Nilsson painting a work included in the exhibition titled \u201cCrocker Wonderment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rest of the exhibition takes you full-circle through Nilsson\u2019s oeuvre, from her early works like \u201cGigantica\u201d (1964) to her experiments with acrylic and water-color. The exhibition displays her artistic range in acrylic pieces such as \u201cAdam and Eve after Cranach\u201d (1971), an amoeba-like recreation of Lucas Cranach Elder\u2019s \u201cAdam and Eve\u201d (1530), or the etched black-and-white figure, \u201cPrimpted\u201d (2004).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an indescribable and yet describable. It is just awesome,\u201d Nilsson said of seeing 60 years of work laid out in front of her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout the exhibition, you\u2019ll see these surprising returns and unexpected detours, and the flow of the gallery is a circular flow anyway. And so we thought this was a nice way to collapse that timeline,\u201d Wilmott said.<\/p>\n
![\"Gladys](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/_50A7396.jpg\" "\\"_50A7396.jpg\\"")
Gladys Nilsson\u2019s \u201cLeger Faire\u201d, right, on display at the Crocker Art Museum. Crocker Art Museum <\/p>\n
Nilsson\u2019s approach to art is highly practical. She began working in watercolor when she was pregnant to avoid the toxic turpentine in oil paints. Nor did she let knee surgery or the supply-chain shortages from the Covid-19 pandemic hinder her ability to create \u2014 instead, she turned to collage.<\/p>\n
\u201cGladys\u2019s personal life and her work cannot be separated when discussed,\u201d Wilmott said.<\/p>\n
For Nilsson, art and the personal are boundaryless \u2014 much of her work explores the feminine sphere, touching on subjects that were especially controversial for their time. Her work often features naked women, sagging breasts, and hairy legs.<\/p>\n
Images of Nilsson in her youth can be seen throughout the exhibit: photos with her husband are included in archival works during her Hairy Who days, a picture of young Nilsson posing in front of her piece \u201cGigantica\u201d (1964), her unruly red curls rivaling those of her creation. While designing the exhibit, Wilmott asked Nilsson to recreate the photo.<\/p>\n
![\"Gladys](\"https:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/public\/latest-news\/vs8pm8\/picture316650086\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/Gleefully%20Askew%20%E2%80%93%20Gladys%20in%20front%20of%20Gigantica.jpeg\" "\\"Gleefully")
Gladys Nilsson stands in front of her piece \u201cGigantica\u201d (1964). Jamie Stukenberg Crocker Art Museum <\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot, in my wildest imagination, imagine another artist who would allow me,\u201d Wilmott said. \u201cShe was sitting here in the rolling desk-chair, and I was trying to think of an image to put with this text because we have images on all the other text.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of artists are not always willing to be playful in that way, but Gladys was game for it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
For Nilsson, not a lot has changed about her approach to art over the decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not earth shaking. It\u2019s the small things that happen between people and how they relate to one another\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s eavesdropping on a couple in public, or admiring a particular shade of fabric in the department store, Nilsson finds inspiration in the everyday. \u201cYou think, \u2018Ooh, that\u2019s a sumptuous feel. How can I use that?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In her free time, she likes to watch what she calls \u201cguilty pleasure\u201d shows, like \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy.\u201d Recently, she\u2019s been watching reruns of \u201cGolden Girls,\u201d considered groundbreaking for its portrayal of older women on the dating scene (especially their sex lives), which she finds has aged in an interesting way. \u201cWhat\u2019s all the hoopla about?\u201d she said of how normal much of what the show portrayed has become.<\/p>\n
It might be easy to forget the audacity of shows like the \u201cGolden Girls\u201d or artists like Nilsson who shattered norms. Exhibitions like \u201cGleefully Askew\u201d remind us those liberties weren\u2019t always taken for granted.<\/p>\n
Much of Nilsson\u2019s work broke barriers. But more importantly, art has always been about having fun \u2014 and the exhibition is, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing about it that\u2019s pretentious,\u201d Nilsson said. \u201cIt\u2019s just goofy. It\u2019s slightly askew.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On her 70th birthday, Chicago-based artist Gladys Nilsson decided to give herself a present. In vivid strokes of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-569907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Gladys](\"https:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/public\/latest-news\/yhldpy\/picture316649303\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/Gleefully%20Askew%20%E2%80%93%20Big%20Birthday%20Gladys.jpeg\" "\\"Gleefully")
Gladys Nilsson\u2019s \u201cBIG BIRTHDAY GLADYS\u201d (2010). Crocker Art Museum <\/p>\n