Self-portrait of Chris Ware

Up next in our series of weekend plans from notable, in-the-know locals—a.k.a. people we like: the Chicago comic artist and graphic novelist Chris Ware, who, with the cultural historian Tim Samuelson, curated the Chicago Cultural Center exhibition Louis Sullivan’s Idea, which closes 5/2.

“Jake Austen will be doing a taping of Chic-a-go-go. He’s a good friend, and his show is something that makes Chicago truly unique. Plus, I know my six-year-old daughter, Clara, wouldn’t want to miss it. She reviewed a Tiny Tim record for Jake’s new issue of Roctober.

“I’d like to see The Sketchbooks of Alfonso Iannelli at Architech before it closes on the 30th. Iannelli is important to the Prairie and so-called Organic schools of architecture for having designed a great deal of statuary for Frank Lloyd Wright’s and Purcell and Elmslie’s work, amongst others. For years now, Tim Samuelson has been collecting material about Iannelli’s wife, Margaret, also an artist in her own right, which should hopefully see light someday as either an exhibit or a book or both.*

“Also, Jim Nutt, who is one of the greatest Chicago artists ever, has a fantastic show up until the end of May at the MCA. He was one of my advisors at the Art Institute when I was a graduate student in the early 1990s.

“So that’s three things, though I’ll most likely simply be going to Target** for new socks and Dominick’s for groceries, aside from playing with Clara, as I don’t really draw so much on weekends any more. Childhood goes by much too quickly to waste my time at the drawing table every day like I used to.”’

FOOTNOTES FROM WARE:
* “Speaking of books, the catalog that goes along with Louis Sullivan’s Idea and that was due out earlier this year still is in full production but is simply late. Tim and I have greatly expanded it with material that wouldn’t fit in the exhibit, and as it’s supposed to stand on its own as a tour through the shape of Sullivan’s life, we decided to slow down and take the time necessary to make it worth owning rather than rushing it out before the exhibit closed. Like the exhibit, it includes images of the buildings taken only during Sullivan’s lifetime and also reproduces drawings, blueprints and fragments never before seen, even in the show, as well as including every photograph of Sullivan that has survived. Finally, it includes pages of historical anecdotes and details collected from interviews and reminiscences that have never been published, all with the aim of presenting Sullivan in the most vivid light possible, which is really Tim’s forte. I’ve never met anyone who knows better how to bring history to life so unpretentiously and colorfully as Tim. It’s to be published by Rich Cahan and Mike Williams’s CityFiles Press. It should be done by the end of the year. Ideally.”

** “Note also that Target will be occupying—quite appropriately—Sullivan’s Carson Pirie Scott store next year.”