NANCY CHUNN (American, born 1941)
Untitled mixed media work
Ink and pastel on newspaper
De-acidified artistically rendered edition of Washington Post, October 23, 1997, various headlines and illustrations
Dimensions Framed, 31 in. x 22 in. Sheet 23 X 14
With some whimsical illustrations and a stencilled Mazel Tov text
Nancy Chunn is an American artist (born 1941) based in New York, Known for her commitment to geopolitical issues, Chunn’s work includes a diverse range of paintings.
Nancy Chunn was born in Los Angeles, California and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1969, from the California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita, California. She began her career in Southern California before moving to New York in the late 1970s, where she currently lives and works. Chunn has exhibited internationally and has been represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York since 1985.
Chunn currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and taught a master painting class at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in 2007.
Chunn’s paintings commonly expose the political arena and portray the power of the media to define and control public opinion. Her work is mostly painting focused on narrative, cultural references and social problems, history, and symbolism both in the global community. She often uses the news, and famously newspapers to draw inspiration and information, adding her own commentary to these sources. The work she produces is colorful, cartoonish, and laced with humorously dark commentary. A self-proclaimed “political junkie,” she achieved critical success with her early map like paintings of tyrannized nations and has continued her commitment to documenting world events and the repeating cycle of history in the paintings she has produced since the early 1980s. She is largely recognized for the yearlong Front Pages project, where she applied images and text to provide commentary on every cover page of The New York Times from January 1 to December 31, 1996. In 1997, Rizzoli produced a hardcover book illustrating each of the project’s works.
Chunn was a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow. She was named Honoree of the fall 2007 Jennifer Howard Coleman Distinguished Lectureship and Residency at Otis College of Art and Design. In 2005, Chunn received an Anonymous Was A Woman Award. She has also twice received a Fellowship Award in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts, namely in 1985 and 1995.
Public collections
City of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Ms. Foundation for Women, New York, NY
Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
The New York Times, New York, NY
The Progressive Corporation, Cleveland, OH
The Prudential Insurance Company of America, Newark, NJ
Commissions
Public School 125, Queens, NY permanent installation painting, commissioned by the City of New York, 1995
Chicago Library Uptown Branch, Chicago, IL, permanent installation painting, commissioned by the City of Chicago, 1993-1995.
Select Exhibitions Include
2017 The Times The FLAG Art Foundation Chelsea New York. The exhibition uses The New York Times as its point of departure.
Artists included: Carlos Rolón, Ellsworth Kelly, Felix González-Torres, Fred Tomaselli, Nancy Chunn, On Kawara, Richard Prince, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Robert Gober, Suzanne Caporael.
2009 Black and White Works Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Soho NYC
Artists included: Andy Warhol, Bruce Pearson, Buckminster Fuller, Chris Burden, Eleanor Antin, Hannah Wilke, Ida Applebroog, Joseph Beuys, Leon Golub, Les Levine, Nancy Chunn, Todd Siler, Vitaly Komar & Alexander Melamid
1995 Strung Into the Apollonian Dream... took place at Feature Inc. in New York, New York from January 20 - February 24, 1995. Artists included Michael Banicki, Nancy Chunn, Tom Friedman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jenny Holzer, Peter Huttinger, Mike Kelley, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Allan McCollum, David Moreno, Hirsch Perlman, Raymond Pettibon, Adrian Piper, Richard Prince, David Robbins, Rene Santos...
Category
1990s Contemporary Mixed Media Paintings
MaterialsPastel, Ink, Mixed Media
