Now showing
Beyond Form: Abstraction at Midcentury
- Where
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
- When
- 27 Jun – 19 Oct 2026· Closes in 17 days
Featuring 65 artists from more than 23 countries, this exhibition explores how abstraction emerged as a powerful visual language between 1940 and 1970, a period of global upheaval and transformation.
65 works of the show in our catalogue
Lee Krasner
Black and White, 1953
Matta
Untitled, n.d.
Pennerton West
Untitled, n.d.
Frank Stella
Double Concentric Squares, n.d.
Hannah Wilke, Donald Goddard
Untitled, 1960s
James Bishop
Mondrian I, n.d.
Arshile Gorky
Untitled, 1943
Jacqueline Lamba
Untitled, 1943
Jackson Pollock
Untitled, 1944
Mark Rothko
Untitled, c. 1944
Barnett Newman
Gea, 1944–45
Anne Ryan
Untitled, 1948–54
Dorothy Dehner
Moscovite, 1950
Hedda Sterne
Untitled, c. 1950
Ellsworth Kelly
Study for "Cité": Brushstrokes Cut into Twenty Squares and Arranged by Chance, 1951
Yves Tanguy
Thar, 1952
Esteban Vicente
Collage No. 7, 1952
Akira Kanayama
Work, 1952
Wifredo Arcay
Untitled, 1953
Claire Falkenstein
Untitled, 1953
Yayoi Kusama
Sun Spot, 1953
Sam Francis
Black and Green, 1953
Sari Dienes
Grate, 1953/55
Jimmy Ernst
Contemporary Icon, 1954
Richard Diebenkorn
Untitled (Berkeley), 1955
David Smith
Untitled, 1955
Grace Hartigan
The Vendor #3, 1956
Conrad Marca-Relli
Abstract Composition, 1956
Hélio Oiticica
Metasquema, No. 244, 1957
Luchita Hurtado
Untitled, 1958
George Joji Miyasaki
Zen, 1958
Franz Kline
Chicago, 1959
Fayga Ostrower
5907, 1959
Lygia Pape
Untitled, 1959
Cy Twombly
Sperlonga, 1959
Willem de Kooning
Litho #2 (Waves #2), 1960
Stanley William Hayter
Abstraction, 1960
Robert Motherwell
The Mediterranean Sky, 1961
Tetsuo Ochikubo
Untitled, 1961
Beauford Delaney
Untitled, 1961
Rasheed Araeen
Hyderabad, 1962
Richard Hunt
Forms in a Landscape, 1962
Deborah Remington
Soot Series 1, 1963
Atsuko Tanaka
Untitled, 1963
Nam June Paik
TV Dream/Dream TV, 1963
Mira Schendel
Untitled, 1964
Mira Schendel
Untitled, 1964
Mira Schendel
Untitled, 1964
Fontana, Lucio
Untitled, c. 1964
Mira Schendel
Untitled, 1964
Mira Schendel
Untitled, 1964
Lenore Tawney
Red Circle, 1964
Mira Schendel
Untitled, 1964
Deborah Remington
Sketchbook, 1965-70
Toko Shinoda
Untitled, 1965
Ruth Asawa
Plane Tree Reversal, 1965
Maria Elena Vieira da Silva
The Gardens No.2, 1966
Otto Piene
Fire Painting, 1967
Gego
Untitled, 1968
![Untitled Sketchbook [Working Study for Soot Series], Deborah Remington, 1969](/api/img?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.artic.edu%2Fiiif%2F2%2F88d482d9-94a3-de3f-4882-90ffeae887e9%2Ffull%2F1200%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg)
Deborah Remington
Untitled Sketchbook [Working Study for Soot Series], 1969
Miguel-Ángel Cárdenas
Untitled, 1969
Romare Bearden
Gray Interior (aka Gray Morning), 1969
Manuel Espinosa
Untitled, from Squares (Cuadrados), c. 1970
Sam Gilliam
Abstraction, 1970
Nasreen Mohamedi