The Extremely Scarce and Collectible The Portable Hairy Who!, Accompanied by a Karl Wirsum Exhibition Catalogue

Two exhibition catalogues, both with the work of Karl Wirsum (1939-2021), including:

Hairy Who. The Portable Hairy Who!. Chicago: Hyde Park Art Center, 1966. Published on the occasion of an exhibition that ran February 25 - April 9, 1966. Booklet in illustrated, stapled wraps; with (16) unnumbered pages with offset lithographs. (Wraps with some creasing and staining, a couple of scratches and marks, and light edge wear; wraps now unfortunately detached; interior toned with light creasing and general handling wear, and one staple seemingly causing minor rust stains.)

Lanny Silverman, curator; John Hallmark Neff. KARL WIRSUM: WINSOME WORK(SOME). Chicago: the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, 2007. Exh. cat. Inscribed on the title page: "Katharine, / To your exhibition / at the Ackland, / all best, / (?)" (likely to Katharine Lee Reid from Lanny Silverman or John Hallmark Neff). Two booklets bound in stapled, illustrated glossy wraps. 32pp.; unpaginated booklet with reproductions of the works of art in the exhibition, with two transparencies. (Light handling wear to wraps including some grime, scuffing, and edge wear; booklets near fine with minor creasing and one with faint mark.)

11 x 7 in.; 13 x 9 in.

Friends Of The Chatham Community Library

The Portable Hairy Who! is a scarce publication, found in only three institutions, per WorldCat, including the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. It is the first of the four comics/artists' books that were published on the occasion of a Hairy Who exhibition in the mid- to late 1960s. Hairy Who was a group of six Chicago-based artists associated with the Chicago Imagists, and included artists Karl Wirsum, Jim Falconer, Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, and Suellen Rocca.