By Paul Varnell

Contributing writer

January 11 marks the beginning of Chicago’s winter art season, when more than 60 galleries will hold opening receptions for their first 2008 exhibitions. Most will then offer new exhibitions every month or so. Highlights include the following:

—The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave., presents “Edward Hopper,” an exhibition of 80 watercolors, prints and oil paintings Hopper produced between 1920 and 1950, and “Winslow Homer: The Color of Light,” a selection of more than 100 watercolors, drawings, and oil paintings, Feb. 16-May 10. The exhibitions are a project of the Terra Foundation’s “American Art, American City” project. Homer (1836-1910) and Hopper (1892-1967) are two of the most important and popular artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

—Loyola University Museum of Art, 820 N. Michigan Ave. 2nd floor, presents “Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds,” which uses silver helium-filled “pillows” that float through space. Visitors move through the floor-to-ceiling “clouds” in an experience that alludes to the heavens or an other-worldly trip. On view Feb. 17-May 4. When originally presented at New York’s Leo Castelli Gallery in 1966, the installation was virtually an all-gay production with Warhol’s pillows, artist Jasper Johns’ sets and interpretive dances choreographed by Merce Cunningham. 

—The highly praised show of imaginative still-lifes with landscape background by Art Institute of Chicago instructor Susan Kraut (reviewed in CFP Dec. 12, 2007) has been extended through January at the Addington Gallery, 714 N. Wells. Then, March 14-April 15, the gallery shows recent landscape paintings by Jill McGannon and figurative artwork by Pat McGannon.

—Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, 715 N. Franklin, has extended through January its show, “Romolo Roberti: an American Original,” which displays recently discovered paintings from the 1930s and 1940s by longtime Chicago resident Romolo Roberti (1896--1988). Many of the paintings are cityscapes of Chicago’s Near North Side: the El, Tree Studios, Allerton Hotel, trolleys, Oriental Theater, Wrigley Building, etc.  

—Intuit: the Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, 756 N. Milwaukee Ave., presents its “Henry Darger Room Collection,” a reconstruction of Darger’s studio apartment at 851 W. Webster along with many of the fixtures, books, papers and trinkets that Darger collected. The reclusive Darger (1892-1973) spent much of his time creating drawing and watercolors of pubescent and pre-pubescent girls and writing a lengthy epic about them. On view Jan. 18-June 28. This exhibition is in conjunction with another Darger exhibit at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood, which runs through March 16.

—Work by early 20th century German artists Max Beckman, Otto Dix and Lionel Feininger as well as the much praised contemporary “Leipzig school” artist Richard Triegel is displayed beginning Feb. 7 at the Worthington Gallery, 737 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1540.

—“I See People, I See Plants,” work by Chicago artist David Csicsko, inspired by folk and “outsider” art, is exhibited at the Judy A. Saslow Gallery, 300 W. Superior, March 14-April 18.

—The Catherine Edelman Gallery, 300 W. Superior, lower level, offers photographs of Japanese landscapes and the island abbey of Mont St. Michel by Michael Kenna. On display March 7-April 19.

—Architech gallery, 730 N. Franklin, Suite 200, features pictures of Art Deco interiors photographed by Ken Hedrich as part of an exhibit of architectural photography of the 1930s. On view Jan. 11-March 8.

—“Harold! Photographs from the Harold Washington Years” by Antonio Dickey and Marc Pokempner is displayed at the Gage Gallery at Roosevelt University, 18 S. Michigan, March 31-June 27.

—Columbia College’s Hokin Gallery, 623 S. Wabash, 1st floor, presents “Word 3: Type + Image,” an exhibition illustrating the union of art and written word. The exhibit features work from Columbia College’s Illustration, Graphic Design and Poetry students. The show runs Jan. 28–Feb. 28.

—The Russell Bowman Art Advisory, 311 W. Superior, presents “Ed Paschke: A Survey,” a grouping of major paintings from 1970 to 2004. On view March 21-May 10.

—Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art presents “Imaging by Numbers: A Historical View of the Computer Print,” which surveys the use of computers in printmaking and drawing through approximately 60 works by nearly 40 North American and European artists. On view Jan. 18-April 6.

—Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave., presents “Gordon Matta-Clark: You Are the Measure,” the first full-scale retrospective exhibition in 20 years of the work of Matta-Clark. Feb. 2-May 4. Matta-Clark is the son of surrealist artist Roberto Matta.

—“Marcelino Stuhmer: The Recurring Dream” at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Michigan Ave. Galleries, 78 E. Washington St., includes a 12-foot panoramic painting of the dream sequence from “The Manchurian Candidate” and a series of portraits of the American character actor Henry Silva. On view Jan. 12-April 6.