Gladys Nilsson’s humorous and exuberant observations of everyday life.

A long-overdue monograph, Gleefully Askew brings together the iconic works of Gladys Nilsson, including watercolors, paintings, drawings, and prints from critical moments in her sixty-year career. The lushly illustrated publication includes new scholarship that highlights Nilsson’s contributions to postwar and contemporary art.

Well-known for watercolors of long-limbed figures engaged in everyday micro-dramas, Nilsson’s works earned her a reputation as the most “feminine” member of Chicago’s Hairy Who group in the 1960s—a characterization she has challenged and spoofed throughout her career. Nilsson’s self-reflexive and often humorous approach has guided her experimental practice, which also includes Plexiglas paintings, mixed-media collage, and embroidery hoop paintings, all of which are reproduced in this comprehensive retrospective catalogue.