Cooler by The Lake

Cooler by the Lake

Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago

February 28 – June 14, 2026

Hyde Park, the beloved South Side of Chicago neighborhood, has been the backdrop for countless experiences for artist Ann Toebbe and it is the subject of this exhibition. The artist has lived in Hyde Park with her husband for two decades. Here, the two have worked and raised their family. The dense and rhythmic paintings and drawings in this exhibition, all made by Toebbe in the last 5 years (2021-2026), lovingly capture places, people, and experiences that have shaped the artist’s life in the neighborhood.

Hyde Parkers old and new might recognize in the works familiar sites such as Valois and Wesley’s Shoe Corral. Other places like Bonjour Bakery, Treasure Island Supermarket, and Toys et Cetera are now gone. The Obamas’ house is hidden behind a clump of overgrown trees. Although the paintings are recent, they capture memories from a decade ago. Bret Hart (2021), Treasure Island (2021), and Valois (2021), represent moments from the artist’s early motherhood: volunteering at her daughter’s elementary school, grocery shopping with a toddler in cart, and having breakfast with a group of mothers with young kids at Valois, a neighborhood hidden gem made famous by President Obama listing it as one of his favorite Hyde Park restaurants.

Several paintings in the exhibition depict more intimate aspects of the artist’s life, her backyard garden, her studio (across from Promontory Point), her living room, and back alley illuminated by neon signs advertising a nearby psychic and tarot reader. These paintings, filled with seemingly mundane objects, are charged with sentimental symbols of the life the artist has created with her family: her and her husband’s biweekly Caesar salads, their cat in the yard, and her studio, which is also where her daughters, now teenagers, host sleepovers with their friends.

The importance of time, contemplated at different scales, is captured through this body of work: salad nights, routine grocery trips, the alley at night, her daughters’ elementary school classroom, a decades-long marriage, and sunsets over Lake Michigan. As part of the exhibition, Toebbe designed a mural titled South Wind (2026) that captures, with Toebbe’s stylized geometric marks, the colors of the sky above the lake as the sun sets. The mural is located near the second-floor elevator landing and is best seen from outside the building, above the main doors.  –Mariela Acuna, Director of Exhibitions