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When Peter and Eileen Broido moved from the west suburbs to a highrise condo overlooking downtown Chicago in 2004, it wasn’t the spectacular view of the Chicago River and the Loop that was the primary selling point. By KEVIN NANCE
\r\n\r\nWhen Peter and Eileen Broido moved from the west suburbs to a highrise condo overlooking downtown Chicago in 2004, it wasn’t the spectacular view of the Chicago River and the Loop that was the primary selling point.
“It was the wall space,” Peter Broido says. “That and the size of the freight elevator.”
\r\n\r\nHe smiles when he says it, but he isn’t kidding. The Broidos needed plenty of room to display their impressive collection of contemporary art, which currently consists of nearly 180 paintings, sculptures and mixed-media pieces on view.
\r\n","body":"By KEVIN NANCE
\r\n\r\nWhen Peter and Eileen Broido moved from the west suburbs to a highrise condo overlooking downtown Chicago in 2004, it wasn’t the spectacular view of the Chicago River and the Loop that was the primary selling point.
\r\n\r\n“It was the wall space,” Peter Broido says. “That and the size of the freight elevator.”
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/81/original/peter-and-eileen-broido.jpg\")
He smiles when he says it, but he isn’t kidding. The Broidos needed plenty of room to display their impressive collection of contemporary art, which currently consists of nearly 180 paintings, sculptures and mixed-media pieces on view. (An additional 50 artworks reside at their adult children’s homes on the East Coast, with about 30 more pieces in storage.) And the freight elevator was of real concern. Early on, a recently acquired 10-foot-wide panoramic photograph by Gerard Maynard missed fitting into the elevator by a couple of inches. The building management suggested that the piece could be hoisted by crane to the Broidos’ balcony more than 30 floors above the riverbank, but in the Windy City this seemed like too much of a risk; in the end, they donated the photograph to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Another acquisition, a large painting by Chicago artist Judy Ledgerwood, made it into the elevator but couldn’t be brought through the apartment door because the corridor outside was too narrow; the painting’s frame had to be broken down and reassembled inside the apartment.
Such are the adventures of one of the city’s most prolific art-collecting couples, who have spent the past 40 years in daily dialogue with art. They’ve feathered their 2,600-square-foot nest with works by Chicago artists (Ledgerwood, Jim Nutt, Karl Wirsum, Curtis Mann, Tom Friedman, John Pittman and Stephanie Brooks, among others) and others from elsewhere in the United States (John Baldessari, Jane Hammond, Jenny Holzer, Byron Kim, Chris Martin, Bruce Nauman, Jon Pestoni, Raymond Pettibon, Lari Pittman, Zak Prekop, Richard Tuttle, Kehinde Wiley, etc.). Most recently they’ve begun branching out to Europe, with emphasis on works by German artists such as Frank Nietzsche.
\r\n\r\nAbstract painting dominates the collection, which also includes a smattering of mixed-media work, notably a large painted collage on a sculpted metal and canvas substructure by the Argentine-American artist Fabian Marcaccio. A group of works on paper—including works by Nutt and Tuttle—take refuge in a bathroom, where they’re shielded from the natural light that otherwise suffuses the apartment.
\r\n\r\nMost of the pieces were acquired soon after their creation and early in the artists’ careers; the Broidos collect only what they like, not what they think might appreciate in monetary value. “We don’t do it as an investment,” Peter Broido says. “The fun for us is finding art, putting our money where our mouth is, and seeing what happens. And it’s been OK.”
\r\n\r\nThe Broidos rarely sell their holdings (though they do sometimes trade one piece for another), instead choosing to donate to museums. Beneficiaries of their largesse include the Museum of Contemporary Art (where the Broidos are longtime supporters and members of MCA’s Merge, a collecting group), the Akron Art Museum and the Elmhurst Art Museum, which displayed several Broido-donated works this fall as part of Inventory, an exhibition of EAM’s collection.
\r\n\r\n“What strikes me about Peter and Eileen’s collecting is that they’re focused on emerging artists,” says Staci Boris, EAM’s chief curator. “They like to seek out new artists, not people who have a track record or are well known. They enjoy the discovery aspect of it, the process of figuring out who is interesting and who has a future. They’re unique in their vision, and they don’t follow trends.”
\r\n\r\nAlong the way, the Broidos have become fixtures on the Chicago art scene, mixing with artists, curators, gallerists and other collectors with an ease born of an engagement sustained over four decades. As Eileen Broido puts it with a smile, “We’re kind of part of the woodwork in Chicago.”
\r\n\r\nThe Broidos’ collecting journey began soon after they moved to the Chicago area in 1969. (Originally from Manhattan—where he spent much of his undergraduate years at Columbia University visiting art galleries at a time when you could pick up a Jasper Johns painting for $500—Peter Broido was a surgeon at Central DuPage Hospital for many years; his wife was a nurse.) Although they lived 30 miles west of the Loop, the young couple came into the city most weekends. “We spent a lot of time on the Eisenhower Expressway,” he recalls with a smile. One day they were walking down Michigan Avenue and turned east on Ontario, where they were met with a scene that reminded them of Disney’s Fantasia: a row of people coming out of an art gallery carrying small paintings.
\r\n\r\n“It was like those walking buckets from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Peter Broido recalls. “The Phyllis Kind Gallery had had a show of Roger Brown paintings, and people were taking their pieces home with them.”
\r\n\r\nThe Broidos were enchanted. They didn’t buy a Brown then—though they would do so a half-dozen times in the years to come—but they met Kind, who introduced them to the Hairy Who painters, including Wirsum, Nutt and Gladys Nilsson, along with other Imagists including Brown and Ed Paschke. “That was fun,” recalls Eileen Broido, who was so enthused that she went back to college, studying art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and, later, the University of Chicago.
\r\n\r\nIn the next two decades, the Broidos amassed one of the city’s largest and most significant collections of Imagist painting, focusing on works that combined figurative and abstract elements. Over the years, however, they began to feel that the Imagists were stuck in a bit of a rut. The turning point came with a Paschke retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1989-90. “We looked at it and said, ‘Ed Paschke is repainting Ed Paschke,’” Peter Broido recalls. “We started looking critically at what we were buying, and basically all of those artists were painting the same things. They hadn’t really moved on. And we decided it was time for us to move on, too.”
\r\n\r\nAlthough the Broidos continued to buy some work by Chicago-based artists, often from Chicago galleries (they maintain relationships with the Rhona Hoffman, Kavi Gupta and Shane Campbell galleries to this day), they began to make an increasing percentage of their acquisitions in New York, forging relationships with dealers in Chelsea and, in later years, on the Lower East Side. And while their earlier purchases had featured the figure, more and more the Broidos concentrated on purely abstract works.
\r\n\r\n“Abstraction just seemed to wear better,” Peter Broido says. “If you go back and look at abstract art from the ’40s, the ’50s, it still looks pretty fresh. Hans Hofmann, my God! Those are just fabulous paintings. They still sing.” On the other hand, his wife says, “It’s just hard to find anything incredibly new with the figure.”
\r\n\r\nIn the 1990s, photography and conceptual art came to the forefront of the art world, but the Broidos largely stuck with painting. Conceptual art they found “a little boring,” Eileen Broido says. And photography? “The problem with photography is in some ways the same thing that’s true with figurative art,” her husband says. “What are you going to do with it that’s different today? You need to make your mark in some way, and another sunset isn’t going to do it.”
\r\n\r\nAs the Broidos developed their taste in art—they rarely disagree; “After 45 years of marriage, we’re pretty much the same person,” Peter Broido says—they also established patterns in the manner of their collecting. They often visit art fairs—they’re regulars at Art Basel Miami and NADA, and say they have enjoyed the first two years of Expo Chicago at Navy Pier—but almost never buy at the fairs. “What I find art fairs most useful for is making connections with dealers I’ve never met before and seeing work that we haven’t seen,” Peter Broido says. “I probably will never buy anything out of a fair, because we don’t like making snap decisions.”
\r\n\r\nFor similar reasons, the Broidos tend to avoid making studio visits with artists with whom they have no prior relationship, because of what they experience as an implicit pressure to buy. “I like talking to artists, because I think they’re terrific people,” he says. “But I really don’t want to go to their studios, because you feel pressured. It isn’t even overt. It’s subtle, but I just don’t want to be in that position. If we went out on a tour with 100 people, I’d be thrilled to go to artists’ studios, but I don’t want to be there one-on-one.”
\r\n\r\n“We do sometimes go after we’ve purchased a piece,” his wife adds. “We were just in Berlin and went to Frank Nietzsche’s studio. His dealer said, ‘You’re here, Frank’s here, why don’t you stop by and say hi?’ We did, and it was interesting to meet him. But there was no pressure, because we had already bought a piece from him.”
\r\n\r\nThe gregarious Broidos especially enjoy discovering new artists by talking with gallerists—which explains their increasing preference for smaller and emerging galleries on New York’s Lower East Side. “Nowadays if you go into the galleries in Chelsea, and if the dealers are there, they’re certainly not out where you can see them,” he says. “On the Lower East Side, the owners are there. They’re young and energetic and enthusiastic and intelligent, and they really enjoy telling you about their art, which is the way it used to be when I was younger. It’s fun to see that.”
\r\n\r\nAnd so for the Broidos, the fun continues. The day after their interview with Chicago Gallery News, they were off to Miami for another round of art-fair visits, combing the aisles in search of new artists to collect. Fortunately for them, they still have a few square feet of open wall space.
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'zak':337B","thumbnail":null,"editor_pick":false,"category_name":"Interviews"},"related":[{"id":13767,"title":"Anticipating a Season of Art: Five to Talk to – Nikko Washington","excerpt":"","body":"Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next.
The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition click here.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1789517637/noxz9olp47gfneafz8xg.jpg\")
“I’m thrilled to further expand my artistic and design practice by introducing other mediums into the mix. I’m looking forward to watching the seasons change and devoting a lot of time in the studio as well. Fall/winter is my favorite time to create new works.
I have an upcoming solo show with VSG Contemporary that I am excited about. The work will delve further into the topics of cultural mythology and how these tales and narratives have helped shape my worldview.
Also, it wouldn’t be right if I left out my excitement for this upcoming season of Chicago sports.”
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961823/s3lp0uull2s8mvd8funj.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher
This interview is part of CGN's Fall 2026 issue. Purchase a copy or subscribe.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961824/mghrpnghxd9j9ko2dsjt.jpg\")
Andi Crist
BY ALISON REILLY
Andi Crist’s warm, engaging demeanor is evident in the first few minutes of our conversation. Generous with her time and forthcoming in her observations, she cares deeply about building relationships through her art making. Crist grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, devoured art classes, wrote songs and played music in high school, and moved to Chicago to study visual art at Columbia College. In 2024, she received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a woodworker, sculptor, ceramicist, and conceptual artist, and she teaches at Illinois Institute of Technology. We discussed her multidisciplinary practice, her experience working as an art handler, preparator, and fabricator, and how she thinks about labor, creativity, and value in the art world.
CGN: You grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. How did that environment shape your point of view as an artist?
Andi Crist: That’s such a funny question. Nobody’s ever really asked.
CGN: Oh, really?
AC: Yeah, maybe because I never was super connected with the arts community down in Birmingham. I moved to Chicago in 2007, so it’s been 20 years since I lived in the South. I was definitely one of those art kids—one art credit was required in high school, and I graduated with like seven. I was surrounded by artists who had a big impact on me, because they were working artists. All my art teachers were trained in Alabama and then continued to teach and work in Alabama, which gave me this desire to try to expand my community outside of what I was familiar with.
CGN: Do you identify as a Chicagoan?
AC: My family still lives in Alabama, and I go back every year. I love being in Alabama. Maybe now being in Chicago for almost 20 years, I identify as a southerner living in the city. I carry on the social qualities of a friendly southern person [laughs].
CGN: You have a varied art practice—woodwork, ceramics, mold making. What drew you to those types of fabrication methods and that type of art making?
AC: My dad is a carpenter and a hobbyist woodworker, but his career was psychology, and my mom was a professor and an incredible craftswoman. I absorbed my mom’s model of creativity, which is to try a bunch of different things and not necessarily finish them but to try to learn as much as I can by just going for it. My practice over the years has become an exploration of conceptual elements of what makes art art and not just craft. Do you have to be a master craftsperson or a professional artist in order to make something that resonates with people?
I make a lot of work that references the mode of making and requires a variety of different media. I just finished teaching a ceramics production class where students learned how to produce molds, think about positives and negatives, and get into a level of production rather than just handicraft as a way to multiply their output.
I got into fabrication because I’ve always liked working with other artists. I have a background in theater and gallery work. I’m a voracious learner, and I like being able to share those skills with my community. Then I end up making work about that. It’s a self-feeding cycle.
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Andi Crist, Artist’s Ladder, 2023. Photo: Jeff Perlman
CGN: Thinking about your background as an art handler and preparator—how did you get to the point where you were making work about that experience?
AC: In 2010, right before I graduated from Columbia, I was living in a storefront in West Logan Square with my partner at the time. We started a gallery called Autotelic in the space and had to build it out using the worst tools with very minimal resources. Then we started curating shows there and that meant helping other artists figure out how to install their work in our unusual space. Eventually, I gained the reputation for knowing how to do that type of work. I started getting invited to work in museums and galleries.
The Holocaust Museum was the first museum I worked at, and as difficult as that subject matter is, that experience was really important to me because I was learning more about the larger world of gallery work. As an artist working as a preparator, you’re straddling both sides of that space. You’re really seeing how the sausage is made. You’re hearing all the conversations about artists, curators, the process of exhibition making. There is a lot of information you can gather about the economics of the art world by just being the person that has the know-how to touch and handle artwork. Eventually that started feeding into my art practice because I wanted to make work that was contributing to a conversation around art as a type of job. It fueled a methodology of seeing everything in the world as the result of a long line of processes that required effort and thoughtfulness by many hands.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961826/uv5bysb5fbne30gr5czh.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Fair Warning, 2025.
CGN: The title of your recent exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum—Live, Laugh, Lo—sorry, not Live, Laugh, Love—Live, Laugh, Labor.
AC: [Laughs] That’s what everybody does.
CGN: I love the title—it’s perfect. You incorporate humor along with thoughtful critiques about labor and value in your work. What role does humor play? How does it help you connect with your audience?
AC: One of my biggest criticisms of art with a capital A is how easily it can be overly intellectualized. I think that’s why I end up making a lot of work that references things that already exist or have some kind of real purpose. It’s important to give people a foothold so there’s an obvious place to board that train of thought. As an artist—maybe this is me getting into a sweeping argument about what artists should be—but I personally believe in intellectual accessibility. Humor is a swift way to drop defenses and allow people to come in without feeling like they are not getting the joke or not understanding. I like to make work that can hold both of those things at the same time—it’s funny on the surface level, it’s kind of cheeky, but there’s also another way to look at it that is intellectually clever. There is a joy in the attempt to “get it”. Like the satisfaction of grasping how a crossword puzzle actually works.
It’s also so much a part of my personality. I take myself seriously as an artist, but my ego isn’t at the heart of it. It’s really something that I do because I love to make things, and I love to connect with other people. My parents raised me on puns, creating those language relationships between things and people and space. Understanding a joke is the same way that we understand art, and while neither of my parents would consider themselves artists, they taught me how to think about art.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961828/gnotyfijabr7e15kb6hm.jpg\")
Andi Crist, 69 Bananas
CGN: Your work, Artist’s Ladder, explores hierarchies, workplace cultures, and institutional values. What experiences shaped your reflections on these themes?
AC: The ladder piece distinctly represents the complicated relationship between front of house, back of house, and the hierarchy of labor. Who is the artist in those relationships? How much does another person’s knowledge and expertise contribute to the success of another artist?
There are enormous, industrialized art practices out there, warehouses full of people making things, and those people are also artists. When you make work that involves other people, it’s important to acknowledge their contributions. I’ve had complicated interactions with other artists who are like, ‘Hey, do you want to collaborate with me on this thing?’ but really they just want me to make their idea. I made Artist’s Ladder while I was in grad school at UIC, and it really represented my relationship with a lot of other artists, because I could be an actual support structure for them. Then it turned into this absurd physical thing. It’s extremely overbuilt with inlaid racing stripes made of exotic hardwood, and a butcher’s block-style plaid top. It’s not really like an FU as much as it is asking for acknowledgement of my skills and the essential support structures that exist.
CGN: I want to ask you about another piece, Five O’Clock Somewhere, a wool rug that resembles a children’s play mat. I work at a library, and it reminded me of rugs I see all the time. It’s a peaceful image of an office park with a large fountain surrounded by a parking lot. I’m curious why you chose a rug as the medium to depict that image.
AC: To me the heart of that joke was that it was a landscape. I wanted it to be physically traversable. And that was, I don’t want to say controversial, but it was something that I had to talk about a lot. The critique of that work was the fact that I didn’t want to hang it on the wall and turn it into a tapestry. I really wanted it to be a rug that people could walk on. When I showed that work at Chicago Artists Coalition for the New City Breakout Artists show. There was a lot of pushback about having it on the floor and allowing people to walk on it.
That, to me, was such an important conversation, because, in my mind, the fact that you could walk across it and traverse it was part of how I was thinking about the object. Rugs are utilitarian–they are floor coverings. When you make art that doesn’t do anything, you don’t get to participate in that part of the conversation.
I enjoy sparring around art like that. I am totally tickled by the pushback. The critique of display is exciting, and sorting through the politics of utilitarianism in art spaces is fun to me. And then—it was so crazy—we ended up showing it halfway on the wall and halfway on the ground.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961829/r1zylkwfw9rkw191skdl.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Five O’Clock Somewhere, on display at Live, Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths at The Cleve Carney Museum of Art, 2025.
CGN: Oh, wow.
AC: I was like, this is the epitome of compromise! I had to build a structure so that it could hang that way safely.
CGN: I would say just put it on the ground if that’s what you want to do. It’s interesting that there are still very fixed ideas about the way that art should be displayed.
AC: That preparator part of it, that’s what I’m all about. I was having that conversation about what physically supports the work or what conceptually supports it in the way that it’s shown.
CGN: Have you always been a writer? How do your art and writing practices work together?
AC: I can’t say that I’m a writer, it’s probably the same way that it can feel weird to call yourself an artist. But I feel like I’ve always been relatively good at writing. The first time I ever did any kind of professional writing was contributing, a long time ago, to a website called eHow. The editors would send me a title, and then I would have to research how to do that thing. Then I would write out step-by-step instructions for how to do that.
I think that’s how I had to make myself think through my conceptual practice—I had to do the research, coagulate that into some kind of document, and then I would have stream-of-consciousness conversations with myself. “Why are we interested in this? Why would we make it this way? What would I want to talk about if someone were to ask me about this?” It’s almost like I was pre-interviewing myself.
I think the writing is just another way for me to process that idea before I put in all of the time and energy to actually accomplish it.
CGN: What are you working on right now? What projects do you have coming up?
AC: The biggest project that I have right now is my house. My family and I suffered a major house fire on New Year’s Day. We’ve been displaced since then and are navigating rebuilding our house. It was a total loss.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961830/kekfqzf9f87fq48juogh.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Single-Use Fireplace, 2025. Photo: Mikey Mosher.
CGN: I’m so sorry to hear that.
AC: Thank you. We’re all okay, but it’s been a really tumultuous year. I moved my studio into a storefront last summer, and so most of my, at least relatively recent, work is safe, and I still have all of my materials, but my home life is starting over. I just had my first full year at this space, and it’s got a little gallery built out in the front called Coming Soon. It’s beautiful with floor-to-ceiling windows on Division and Central Park. I’ve been inviting people into the space to try things out.
After teaching the ceramics class, I came into a bunch of nice slip casting molds, and I’m making some really playful, weird, ceramic stuff. I want to be open and not put too much pressure on myself. Having a big studio by myself is very expensive, so it’s easy to want to make it feel like it’s worth it. But if for now all I can do is make it a resource for other people, then that will be the thing I do. Be less selfish, but more selfish with my time. Saying I can’t do that, or I don’t want to do that. It’s not my nature to say no—I’m such a yes man. I’m learning how to be a yes man for myself.
CGN: That makes sense after going through something so traumatic.
AC: I have an amazing support system. Our friends started a GoFundMe. It was incredible. I’m so humbled and floored by how held I felt by Chicago. I can’t help but throw a little shout out to my Chicago people. I can see how people’s lives get totally ruined by this kind of tragedy. I feel so lucky. Chicago definitely showed its love back.
CGN: For your project Coming Soon, are you bringing in other artists?
AC: My philosophy is that I want to be involved as little as possible. I am thinking about it more as a hosted than curated space. I’m actively soliciting proposals or ideas for workshops, meetings, book clubs—I’m down for making it a resource, whatever that means. I don’t want to over-think it, I want it to be an intuitive and organic thing, which is why I call it Coming Soon—it can be a placeholder for anything. It’s exciting. Taking my hands off the reins is a good exercise for me.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961831/gno5dhliwfnzpuaim78s.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher
Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next.
The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition click here.
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“Intuit Art Museum’s renovated, expanded spaces give audiences the chance to connect with art through daily art-making, third Thursday Art After Work, group Slow Looks designed to provide a mindful experience with a single work and upcoming conversations with sculptor Bill Brady (Oct. 3) and Dr. Mary Trent (Oct. 15), who curated our current exhibition on the role of scrapbook-making in Henry Darger’s art.
On view is the thought-provoking Monumental: The Sculpture of Dr. Charles Smith, which encourages guests to consider the lack of historical representation of African Americans and Black people in America. Dr. Smith’s memorials champion Black history and stories of everyday life he sees missing in mainstream narratives.
This fall we’re opening an exhibition of paintings by Karla Wong, an artist who immigrated from Oaxaca and who explores themes of life and death, gender identity and self-discovery.”