Free festival features over 130 exhibitors including one-of-a-kind art, entertainment, food, and family activities.
Art in Wilder Park features a preview of CROSSINGS, a solo exhibition of sculptures by acclaimed Chicago artist Bernard Williams exploring history of Black achievements in transportation and agriculture
In partnership with the Elmhurst Park District, theElmhurst Art Museum announces the return of Art in Wilder Park to the heart of Elmhurst this spring. One of the first outdoor festivals of the season, Art in Wilder Park features over 130 exhibitors including local artists, food vendors, a designated Kids Court for family activities, and more. The free-to-the-public event annually attracts over 8,000 people to the museum campus and takes place May 3-4, 2025, from 10 am to 5 pm, at 175 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst.
The highly-anticipated juried festival Art in Wilder Park features a variety of artisans selling one-of-a-kind jewelry, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, prints, fiber arts, and mouth-watering treats from local food vendors. The festival offers fun for the whole family with engaging activities and creative art projects made in collaboration with partner organizations.
A visitor highlight of the 28th annual Art in Wilder Park is a preview of CROSSINGS, a solo exhibition of acclaimed Chicago-based artist Bernard Williams that will traverse the Museum’s campus this summer. On view during Art in Wilder Park will be several outdoor vehicle sculptures and an airplane sculpture inside the Museum’s Hostetler Gallery that will be free for the public to view. Several large paintings by Williams will be installed in the McCormick House in tandem with the opening of the Museum’s summer exhibition, Legacies: Selections from the Elmhurst Art Museum Permanent Collection (May 30 to August 17, 2025).
CROSSINGS is curated by Allison Peters Quinn, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Elmhurst Art Museum since December 2024.
Quinn says, “Williams’s compelling artworks give fresh perspectives on form, space, and common materials and will provide Elmhurst residents and visitors an opportunity to engage with cutting-edge art in an accessible, public setting. CROSSINGS highlights Elmhurst Art Museum’s commitment to fostering creativity and connecting artists with the community and vice versa, adding thought-provoking contemporary art to the draw of Art in Wilder Park this year.“
Art in Wilder Park is produced by the Elmhurst Art Museum in partnership with Elmhurst Park District. Presenting sponsor Kelly Stetler | Compass. Festival sponsors: All American Gutter Protection, Chiro One Wellness Centers, Discover DuPage, Enjoy Illinois Explore Elmhurst, Great American Exteriors, The Home Improvement Network,, and Renewal by Andersen Windows. Special Event Sponsors: Chicago Event Graphics and Unlimited Heating & Cooling. Sculpture Sponsors: Community Bank of Elmhurst, Lakeside Bank, Wangler and Company, and WinTrust Bank of Elmhurst.
ABOUT CROSSINGS
A Chicago native who has been making and exhibiting his art since 1990, Williams is celebrated for his public murals, sculptures, and paintings that highlight little-known or forgotten narratives in history. For CROSSINGS, Williams takes visitors on a journey through the history of Black achievements in transportation and agriculture.
“CROSSINGS is in my mind a far-reaching exploration of American history and culture. The artworks venture into the past and present to open up conversations about important individuals and ideas which can inform and inspire us today,” says Williams.
In CROSSINGS, Williams explores the concept of mobility—not just as physical movement forward, but as the human aspiration to rise to better circumstances.One of the sculptures is a race car, honoring Wendell Scott, the first Black man to win a NASCAR premier league event. Across the body of the car sculpture, Williams paints site-specific symbolism— for Elmhurst, the artist will recognize the lifetime achievements of the local NASCAR winner, Fred Lorenzen (1934-2024).
A highlight of the exhibition is a large, fabricated tractor in homage to the strength, power, and labor of African American farmers in the US. Titled Black Tractor (2020), the tractor memorializes Williams’s uncle, an Alabama-based farmer who distributed money from the Black Farmers Settlement to his relatives and funded Williams’s art practice with a small inheritance.
Two new sculptures resembling signposts will also be unveiled in CROSSINGS. One signpost will celebrate the achievements of Black cowboys in shaping the American West after the Civil War, tying into the agricultural history presented inBlack Tractor. The second sculpture honors Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman pilot and a trailblazer who created opportunities for other Black pilots in the early 1900s. This sculpture accompanies Williams’s new, life-sized airplane sculpture, which will be presented in the Hostetler Gallery inside the Museum.
CROSSINGS is generously supported by Lakeside Bank and Explore Elmhurst with important contributions from Community Bank of Elmhurst, Elmhurst Bank/WinTrust, and Wangler and Company, Inc.
ABOUT BERNARD WILLIAMS
Williams is celebrated as a painter and sculptor both regionally and nationally. He has been awarded an Illinois Arts Council Grant and the Artadia Award. His work has been featured at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson (MS), The African-American Museum in Dallas (TX), Chicago Cultural Center, Kohler Art Center, and The Eiteljorg Museum of Native American and Western Art (IN), among other institutions. Public sculptures and murals by Williams are spread throughout the Chicagoland area, including a permanent sculpture for the Chicago Transit Authority, the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park, University Park, IL, Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, and several works for the Chicago Park District, one notable installation located at 31st Street beach in Bronzeville. Williams holds a BFA Degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and an MFA from Northwestern University. He also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (ME). Williams taught art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1991-2003 and has been an active member of the Chicago Public Art Group for nearly thirty years.
ABOUT THE ELMHURST ART MUSEUM’S SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
CROSSINGS will run concurrently with the major exhibition Legacies: Selections from the Elmhurst Art Collection, which will feature a small sculpture by Williams from the collection of Cleve Carney, along with dozens of artists in the Museum’s collection from Marc Chagall and Mies van der Rohe to Kay Rosen and Michiko Itatani.
Comprised of approximately 1,000 artworks, the Elmhurst Art Museum Collection began in the 1990s and focuses on modern and contemporary art works by Midwestern artists, architects, and designers that have exhibited at the museum, and furniture design items related to the McCormick House. Many of the people who donated their work to the Museum are Elmhurst community members or from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Legacies: Selections from the Elmhurst Art Museum Permanent Collection will feature micro installations of paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures from nearly a dozen collections donated to the Museum to explore the nature of collecting; how and why the work was collected by these families, artists, or individuals.
Led by the Museum’s curatorial team, Legacies: Selections from the Elmhurst Art Museum Permanent Collection will be accompanied by a lively program of music, film, talks, and tours to address collecting practices and access to collections, while inspiring people to build collections.
ABOUT THE ELMHURST ART MUSEUM
The Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst (IL), 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by car or public transportation (Metra). On the museum’s campus is the McCormick House, a single-family home designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe, one of the great architects of the 20th Century. The McCormick House is one of only three residences designed and built by Mies in the United States – and one of only two open to the public.
The Museum is open Wednesday and Thursday from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., Friday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Regular admission prices are $18 for Adults (ages 18+), $15 for Seniors, $10 for Students, and $5 for Children. For more information, please call 630.834.0202 or visit elmhurstartmuseum.org.
