*This interview and is from CGN's fall 2024 magazine. To subscribe to the print edition click here.*

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

The art world is ever changing, but when many people consider the arc of the gallery scene in Chicago, they still think (or hear stories) of River North in the 1980s, when it was a new city neighborhood bursting with dozens of art spaces and the buzzy people who flocked to them on opening nights. Gallerist Carl Hammer’s name and career is inextricably linked to those early days in the art world and much of what has come in the four and a half decades since.

Hammer opened his gallery, then called Hammer and Hammer / American Folk Art, in 1979 at 620 N. Michigan Ave., in what was known as the Breskin building, which housed numerous other galleries at the time, including Richard Gray, and other prominent early names. He moved a few blocks west to Wells Street in the ‘80s and was part of the original 16 galleries that created the River North Gallery District. Hammer’s gallery remains at the same historic Wells Street address today.

Hammer’s journey to being one of the most well-known dealers in Chicago started before he was part of the art market at all: when he was teaching English at Evanston High School during the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War. Hammer and his wife at the time became interested in collecting art and were inspired to focus on grassroots artists because of the country’s political and social climate. Collecting art while traveling during school breaks led to a deeper, but still idealistic, exploration of what grassroots art meant, and those out of the way road trips put Hammer in touch with self-taught and folk artists, who were eventually labeled “Outsider.” Hammer felt called to enter the business of selling the art he so admired, and his life in the gallery world followed, featuring exhibitions of work by noted Outsider artists like Lee Godie and Henry Darger, as well as contemporary art by Michael Hernandez de Luna, and graphic novelist Chris Ware. 

Hammer told me a few years ago he considered himself a bit of an outsider, since he never had formal art training, but I think it’s Hammer’s continual curiosity, combined with his affection for artists and collectors, that has given him 45 years both inside and outside the art scene, with more to come. 

The gallery will celebrate it’s 45th anniversary this fall with an exhibition of work by Chris “CJ” Pyle, opening September 6, and a show with David Sharpe opening November 1. 

Details at carlhammergallery.com