The Hairy Who (Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Jim Falconer, Suellen Rocca, and Karl Wirsum)

Why this artist matters now

The Hairy Who, a six-member artist collective active from 1966 to 1969, produced bright, bold graphic work defined by a shared commitment to provocation, irreverence, and figuration at odds with dominant American art movements of the period. Comprising Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Jim Falconer, Suellen Rocca, and Karl Wirsum, all recent graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the group mounted six self-organized exhibitions across Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC. Their debut presentations at the Hyde Park Art Center on Chicago's South Side drew immediate local and national attention. A 2018 retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago offered the first major survey of their collective and individual work.