Intuit Art Museum announces 2026 exhibition schedule featuring trio of solo exhibitions of pioneering self-taught artists Bill Brady, Dr. Charles Smith, and Marvin Young
Intuit Art Museum (IAM), recognized worldwide as one of the few institutions dedicated solely to championing the work of self-taught artists, announces its 2026 exhibition schedule featuring a trio of vibrant solo exhibitions of pioneering experimental artists Billy Brady, Dr. Charles Smith, and Marvin Young. The Museum will also offer a refreshed installation of its renowned Henry Darger collection focusing on the influence of craft making on the artist’s work; plus, an exhibition displaying recent gifts from the collection of Chicago art collector, curator, and advocate Jan Petry.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
Drawing with Metal: Sculpture by Bill Brady
April 9 to October 4, 2026
Drawing with Metal: Sculpture by Bill Brady is the largest solo exhibition of the artist’s work outside his native Pennsylvania. Known for transforming tin-plated steel and welding rods into forms that evoke figures, machines, spacecraft, and whimsical abstractions, the retrospective features more than 40 dynamic sculptures alongside images from Brady’s sketchbooks. Curated by IAM Chief Curator Alison Amick, Drawing with Metal: Sculpture by Bill Brady features a selection of works from over five decades, providing insight into the imaginative sources behind the artist’s practice.
Impressions of a City: Drawings by Marvin Young
April 9 to August 23, 2026
The City of Chicago and its people are celebrated in IAM’s exhibition of works by Chicago-based artist Marvin Young. A lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side, Young joined Arts of Life’s progressive studio for artists with intellectual and physical disabilities in 2024. Using graphite, colored pencil, crayon, pen, and marker, Young creates vivid drawings that reflect his community and personal history, capturing imagined and remembered urban scenes alongside large-scale portaits. Young’s architectural landscapes feature vintage Chicago walk-ups, brownstones, and high rises framed by bright skies and classic cars, taxi cabs, police officers, and bustling city life. Curated by IAM Assistant Curator Christina Stavros, the exhibition showcases Young’s vision and prolific practice.
Monumental: The Work of Dr. Charles Smith
April 29, 2026 to April 22, 2027
Dr. Charles Smith served as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, an experience that left lasting wounds and shaped his artistic vision. In the 1980s, he began transforming his Aurora, Ill., home into the African-American Heritage Museum and Black Veterans Archive—a monumental environment of nearly 600 sculptures and 150 monuments honoring African-American history and civil rights. Using found materials, Smith created life-sized figures and symbolic structures referencing slavery, the Middle Passage, the Underground Railroad, African American cultural and political figures, and everyday life. Through the concept of anti-monumentalism, Smith critiques traditional monuments and holds space for histories often excluded from civic memory. Curated by IAM Assistant Curator Christina Stavros, Monumental: The Work of Dr. Charles Smith features pieces from the Museum’s collection alongside select loans, including several recently conserved works now on view for the first time in years.
OTHER EXHIBTIIONS:
Life is an Art: The Collection of Jan Petry
April 9, 2026 to March 21, 2027
Life is an Art: The Collection of Jan Petry highlights 30 artworks donated to IAM by the late, long-time board member Jan Petry. Curated by IAM Chief Curator Alison Amick, the exhibition showcases paintings, drawings, and sculptures by major figures in American self-taught art, including Emery Blagdon, James Castle, Ulysses Davis, Charles Dellschau, William Hawkins, and Martín Ramírez, as well as Günther Schützenhöfer, a resident artist at Gugging, a progressive art studio in Austria. Those artworks are complemented by objects that reflect Petry’s passion for folk art, design, furniture, and maritime themes, offering a glimpse into the vision of a dedicated collector.
Cutting and Pasting a World: The Paper Craft of Henry Darger
April 22, 2026 to January 31, 2027
IAM joins in the celebration of the 250th anniversary celebration of American craft, Handwork 2026, organized by Craft in America, with an exhibition exploring the connection between Henry Darger’s art and traditional American paper crafts. Drawing on research by guest curator and art historian Dr. Mary Trent (College of Charleston), the exhibition illustrates how the turn-of-the-century practices of making paper dolls and paper dollhouse scrapbooks may have influenced Darger’s evolution as an artist and maker. By showcasing both finished artworks and original source materials, the exhibition demonstrates how Darger adapted these humble pastimes into sophisticated methods for constructing large-scale, mixed-media narratives. The exhibition provides context for these crafts within the early 20th-century movement to instill middle-class American “taste” in a burgeoning immigrant population. Likely exposed to these practices within social welfare institutions as a child, Darger ultimately subverted them—transforming decorative domestic crafts into a profound and complex commentary on the vulnerabilities of marginalized children.
More information: https://art.org
