Thomas H. Kapsalis – American Artist

Works 1990 - 2013

Exhibit Dates: June 7 - August 4, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 6-9 pm

The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is proud to present a solo exhibition of one of Chicago’s great abstractionists, painter and sculptor Thomas Kapsalis.
The focus of this exhibition is Kapsalis’s works from 1990-2013, and features works in various media, such as paintings, sculptures in metal, wood, and recycled materials. Many of the works were created in the past decade, and have never been publicly exhibited.

Kapsalis’s combinations of colors and shapes are masterfully composed, making his work visually very attractive. But there is more in Kapsalis’s work than geometric abstraction - the titles of the works will open the door to another dimension of his works. They reveal something about the artist and his observations of everyday life, sometime intellectual, sometime with humor, but always with perspective of an American Artist.

A prisoner of war in Germany, captured during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, Kapsalis returned to the United States, and continued his pursuit of art-making. He has been an important artist and educator since the late ’40s, when he graduated from the School of the Art Institute. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute since 1954. Kapsalis’s work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo shows, and he received many prestigious prizes and awards.

Preview exhibit on our Flickr page

Upcoming exhibitions:

August 9 – September 29, 2013

Chicago’s Bauhaus Legacy: The New Bauhaus, founded in 1937 in Chicago, was the immediate successor to the  Bauhaus dissolved in 1933 under National Socialist pressure and was led by former Bauhaus master László Moholy-Nagy. This exhibit will showcase art, industrial design and architecture by students and teachers from New Bauhaus, School of Design and Institute of Design (1935-1955) as well as their art from 1955 to the present. This exhibit is organized in  collaboration with the Bauhaus Chicago Committee, whose Executive Director, T. Paul Young is co-curator.

October 4 – December 1, 2013

Artists respond to genocide: In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Ukrainian Holodomor Genocide-Famine, and Chicago Artists’ Month, the UIMA is organizing a city-wide exhibition ‘Artists Respond to Genocide’.

December 6, 2013 – January, 2014

Glass and Ceramic: This exhibit will feature artists working in ceramics and glass medium.