Image: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston
The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University will present ‘Picturing the Modern Metropolis: Prints and Photographs from The Block’s Collection’ from September 9 through December 6, 2026. The Evanston exhibition brings together more than 100 prints and photographs, focusing primarily on artists working in the 20th century and their varied representations of urban life.
The exhibition considers the city as a subject shaped by speed, density and visual disruption. According to the museum, skyscrapers, crowded intersections and street scenes became familiar images of the modern metropolis, while exaggeration and fragmentation offered artists ways to convey the sensory experience of urban spaces. The works also explore ideals associated with city life, including mobility, diversity, belonging and individual expression.
Among the artists represented are Edward Steichen, Vivian Maier, Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol. The exhibition also places those better-known figures alongside Chicago-based artists Henry Simon and Yuichi Idaka, whose photographs engage with the city’s visual and sensory character. The selection includes photographs, woodcuts, lithographs, collages, drawings and other forms of printmaking.
Featured works listed by the museum include Steichen’s ‘Radio City, New York’ (1932), Maier’s ‘Chicago’ (1962, printed 2023), Simon’s ‘Untitled (State and Monroe Streets) (silhouetted figures)’ (ca. 1965) and Idaka’s ‘Untitled’ (ca. 1946). Other works include Christo’s ‘Wrapped Building Project for Allied Chemical Tower’ (1991), Clare Romano’s ‘New Jersey Turnpike, Night’ (1962), Richard Nickel’s ‘Gerrick Theater’ (ca. 1957, printed 2006) and Robert Cottingham’s ‘Rialto’ (1985).
‘Picturing the Modern Metropolis’ is curated by Eduardo Bello, the museum’s 2025–26 Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow, and Corinne Granof, Academic Curator at The Block Museum of Art. The exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, with additional support for the graduate fellowship from Northwestern University’s Graduate School. The Block, located at 40 Arts Circle Drive in Evanston, describes itself as free and open to all.
The exhibition will be accompanied by public programs including the keynote ‘The Modern Metropolis’ & Images of the City’ on September 30; ‘Our Changing City: The Obama Presidential Center’ on October 9; a curator’s talk, ‘Modernity in the Making,’ on October 22; and ‘Vacant Stares: Adrienne Brown on Rethinking Urban Emptiness’ on November 11. Student-led Saturday Art Talks will run from October 3 through December 5, with no talks on November 21 or November 28. The exhibition remains on view through December 6, 2026.
