What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine @ Cincinnati Art Museum

What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine 

Cincinnati Art Museum 

November 21, 2025 - March 1, 2026

Irreverent, iconic and wildly influential, MAD Magazine has been making generations laugh—and think—since 1952. The Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) invites visitors to rediscover the wit, weirdness and cultural critique that made MAD a publishing phenomenon in What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine.

Organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and co-curated by Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, Chief Curator and Rockwell Center Director of the Norman Rockwell Museum, and Steve Brodner, foremost satirical illustrator and caricaturist, What, Me Worry? traces the illustrated history of MAD from its subversive comic book roots to its status as a mainstream force in American satire. Featuring more than 150 original works of art, the exhibition highlights beloved recurring features, unforgettable caricatures and the artists and writers behind them—collectively known as the “Usual Gang of Idiots.”

From Spy vs. Spy to the famous Fold-Ins and Alfred E. Neuman’s ever-grinning face, What, Me Worry? showcases MAD’s signature blend of visual hilarity and sharp cultural commentary. Original illustrations and cartoons by Mort Drucker, Sergio Aragonés, Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, Richard Williams and many others will be on view alongside ephemera, artifacts, media and rare memorabilia.

“This exhibition invites visitors, many of whom are MAD lovers, to reminisce over the magazine’s satirical history and have a good laugh but also explore the themes and critical historical moments spoofed by MAD,” said Director of Learning & Interpretation Emily Agricola Holtrop, the exhibition’s curator at CAM. “Through laughter, generations have learned about important social moments that have shaped this country—MAD did that.”

First hitting newsstands in 1952, MAD originally launched as an EC comic book series founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines, with its inaugural issue titled Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad. The publication’s now-legendary parodies of Superduperman (issue #4) and Starchie (issue #12)—takeoffs on the classic DC Superhero and Archie comics—launched MAD into the stratosphere. In 1955, with MAD #24, the comic was reimagined as an illustrated magazine, releasing it from the censure of the Comics Code Authority. Between 1955 and 2025, over 595 issues have been published, along with numerous of specials, books, paperbacks and compilation projects. Now part of the Warner Bros. Discovery family, managed by DC, MAD continues with curated reprints, compilations and some new features, and is available at Barnes & Noble’s newsstands, Bookazines or via subscription to fans nationwide.

CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM

Western & Southern galleries (Galleries 232 and 233)

953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45202

www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org

Recall. Reframe. Respond. The Art of Paul Scott @ Cincinnati Art Museum

Recall. Reframe. Respond. The Art of Paul Scott 

Cincinnati Art Museum

October 10, 2025 – January 4, 2026

Ceramic tableware with intricate blue patterning has been a staple in dining room décor for centuries. Contemporary artist Paul Scott (British, b. 1953) carries this tradition forward, yet his designs are anything but conventional. More than 50 of his works, which present updated narratives about art, history and American experiences, will be on view at the Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) in the exhibition Recall. Reframe. Respond. The Art of Paul Scott.

Paul Scott breaks, reassembles, erases and adds details to ceramics from the 1800s and 1900s using transfer-printing and collage processes to create new “historical” patterns. In addition to these repurposed antique pieces and the artist’s new ceramic forms, Recall. Reframe. Respond. debuts Scott’s limited-edition letterpress artist book. A selection of his works will be paired with artworks from CAM’s American art collection to “reframe” the way audiences see, experience and reflect on these objects.

“This is not your grandparents’ blue-and-white china,” notes Amy Dehan, the museum’s curator of decorative arts and design. “Paul Scott’s work is subversive in the best way—witty, wry and challenging. It urges us to look critically at dominant narratives while making connections across human experience, places and time.”

Recall. Reframe. Respond. also celebrates local artists and voices, featuring responses to a selection of Scott’s works written by community members. Notably, the exhibition also presents two transferware pieces on which he collaborated with Cincinnati-based artist Terence Hammonds.

Based in the northwest English county of Cumbria, Paul Scott is an artist, author, curator and educator who is best known for his unique ability to employ extensive historical and technical knowledge of ceramics to create provocative artworks and social commentary. During a visit to Ohio State University in 1999, Paul Scott became inspired by historical British-made blue-and-white ceramic transferwares that depicted American scenes, directly engaging American consumers. After his visit, Paul Scott challenged himself to create his own versions that recontextualize the messages embedded within these historical works by focusing on contemporary imagery and subjects. Scott’s New American Scenery series reflects his personal experiences of being and traveling in America, and, in his words, the need to “rebalance the narrative with something more contemporary and inclusive.”

Paul Scott shares: “Industrial transferwares were part of the new media revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They have always carried images and patterns which have journeyed through media, time, histories and geographies, capturing and changing meanings as they have travelled. Cumbrian Blue(s) contemporary artworks reference these original wares, so I very much enjoy opportunities which allow me to juxtapose my 21st century iterations alongside the historic in visual dialogues that act to re-animate (sometimes forgotten) objects from museum stores. For Recall. Reframe. Respond., I am excited to extend this process to include paintings, prints, photographs and other artworks from Cincinnati Art Museum’s extensive collections, creating new ‘conversations’ and reanimations.”

Over the last three decades, Paul Scott has established an international reputation. His work can be found in public and private collections around the globe including The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Norway, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

Transfer-printed ware, or transferware, describes industrially produced ceramic tableware that has a decorative pattern applied by transferring a print first from an engraved copper plate to specialized paper and finally to the ceramic’s surface. This term also applies to modern wares with printed graphic surfaces made using more recent printmaking techniques and decal transfer technologies.

The exhibition will be on view in the Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Gallery and the Manuel and Rhoda Mayerson Gallery (124 and 125) located across from the Terrace Café. Several works will be displayed in other museum galleries, to be in conversation with the collections.

CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM

953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45202

www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org

East Asian Art Rediscovered Treasures @ Cincinnati Art Museum

Rediscovered Treasures 

Cincinnati Art Museum

September 19, 2025 — January 18, 2026

This exhibition reveals the untold stories behind East Asian masterpieces long housed in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s (CAM) collection. Featuring approximately 60 objects—ranging from Japanese armor and Chinese scrolls to Korean lacquer—Rediscovered Treasures brings to light transformative discoveries made possible by decades of scholarship, archival research and conservation efforts. 

While many of the featured works entered the museum in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they remained un-accessioned or misidentified due to a lack of staff expertise in Asian art at the time. Since 2002, when the museum formally established its Asian art department, ongoing research led by Hou-mei Sung, PhD, Curator of East Asian Art, has dramatically improved the understanding of these objects. Their rediscovery has not only reframed the museum’s collection, but has also illuminated Cincinnati’s early cultural ties to East Asia.

Among the exhibition’s highlights are three exceptional works: the fan-favorite Japanese bronze “magic mirror,” which reveals an image of Amida Buddha under special lighting, making CAM one of the few museums in the world to house such an object; a Qing dynasty portrait of a court lady, identified through research as an imperial portrait of Lady Nian, possibly painted by the Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione; and a Meiji period sumo wrestler’s embroidered apron, recently linked to the tragic career of Otokoyama Osuke, a promising young wrestler immortalized in a ukiyo-e print by Utagawa Kuniaki II. Each piece offers a unique story of rediscovery that enriches the understanding of East Asian art and culture.

“This exhibition is both a reflection of CAM’s mission to preserve and interpret cultural heritage and a celebration of the exciting process of rediscovery,” said Hou-mei Sung. “Many of these works, once overlooked or mislabeled, now tell vibrant stories of art, of individual lives, and of historical connections that extend far beyond Cincinnati.”

The exhibition is organized in three thematic sections. Uncovering Hidden Gems spotlights artworks recovered from storage and newly identified, including Japanese scrolls linked to Cincinnati artist Robert Frederick Blum and samurai armor tied to CAM’s early supporters and a trailblazing Japanese doctor. Revealing Identities feature reclassified works with newly attributed artists, corrected origins and uncovered meanings. Preserving Legacies highlights the scientific and technical efforts behind preserving these treasures, with insights from CAM conservators Cecile Mear and Kelly Rectenwald.

CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM

Thomas R. Schiff galleries (234 and 235)

953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45202

www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org

Frank Duveneck @ Cincinnati Art Museum - American Master

Frank Duveneck: American Master

Cincinnati Art Museum

Through March 28, 2021

FRANK DUVENECK (1848–1919), United States

He Lives by His Wits, 1878

Oil on canvas

Collection of Gates Thornton Richards and Margaret Kyte Richards

The Cincinnati Art Museum presents a major re-evaluation of the work of FRANK DUVENECK, the most influential painter in Cincinnati history.

Through his brilliant and inspiring work as a painter and printmaker and as a charismatic teacher, Frank Duveneck’s impact on the international art world of his time was substantial and enduring. More than 90 examples across media from the holdings of the museum, the leading repository of the Kentucky native’s work, and 35 pieces on loan from collections across the United States, provides a fresh, in-depth look at this important artist.

Once Cincinnati’s most celebrated artist, Frank Duveneck was born in Covington to Westphalian immigrants in 1848. He studied in Munich, Germany, where he became an influential teacher, and spent nearly two decades in Europe. His work reflected the impact not only of modern German art, as is widely acknowledged, but also French and Italian work. His paintings’ lack of finish and assertive brushwork parallel Impressionism, and his work as a printmaker positioned him centrally in the period’s etching revival.

A captivating educator of men and women, Frank Duveneck counted John Henry Twachtman and Elizabeth Boott among his pupils and James Abbott McNeill Whistler among his collegial friends. Returning to the United States in 1888, Duveneck taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, where he became director of the faculty in 1905. As a mentor and esteemed advisor to collectors and the Cincinnati Art Museum staff, Duveneck’s impact on the Cincinnati art world remains unparalleled.

This is the first exhibition in 30 years to dive deep into Frank Duveneck’s artistic development, his working methods, and the historical and social context of his subjects. Presenting abundant new research, the exhibition upends many common misconceptions and reveals the artist’s accomplishments across subjects and media, including oil paintings, drawings, watercolors, pastels, etchings, monotypes, and sculpture.

The paintings of streetwise kids and informal portraits for which he is renowned are accompanied by society portraits, Bavarian landscapes, Venetian harbor views, depictions of Italian city and country folk, renderings of the nude figure and more. A profusely illustrated catalogue published with D. Giles Ltd is available.

Dr. Julie Aronson, curator of American Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings at the Cincinnati Art Museum since 1999, has been working on the exhibition for several years.

“We are excited to celebrate Frank Duveneck with this exhibition that illuminates one of the unique strengths of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s collection: its deep concentration in the works of one of the towering figures of American art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Side by side with our stunning Duveneck masterworks are key paintings on loan from across the country, presenting a fresh approach to the compelling story of one of our regional heroes. Duveneck’s bravura painting shines in this exhibition as never before!” said Julie Aronson.

Advanced online registration is required.

CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM

953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45202

www.cincinnatiartmusem.org

Kimono: Refashioning Contemporary Style @ Cincinnati Art Museum

Kimono: Refashioning Contemporary Style
Cincinnati Art Museum
June 28 – September 15, 2019

Toshiko Yamawaki (1887–1960), Japan

Evening Dress with Wave Motif, 1956

Silk taffeta with gold-thread embroidery 

Collection of The Kyoto Costume Institute 

Inv. AC12555 2011-8-35AB

Gift from Yamawaki Fashion Art College

Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

In Kimono: Refashioning Contemporary Style, at the Cincinnati Art Museum, visitors can experience more than 50 ensembles by Japanese, European and American designers including Coco Chanel, Christian Louboutin, John Galliano, Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, Rei Kawakubo, Iris van Herpen and Issey Miyake.

Organized by the Kyoto Costume Institute in Japan and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the exhibition features fashion from the 1870s to the present day along with kimono, Japanese prints, paintings and textiles.

Kimono—literally translated “thing to wear”—has impacted international fashion since Japan opened its ports to the world in the mid-1850s. The form and silhouette of kimono, its two-dimensional structure and motifs used as surface embellishment, have all been refashioned into a wide array of garments. Kimono revealed new possibilities in clothing design and helped lay the foundation for contemporary fashion design.

The exhibition explores these themes in four sections. The first explores the influence of Japanese aesthetics, called Japonsim, on artists, specifically painters, of the late nineteenth century, who depicted kimono in many of their works. The second section examines kimono’s influence on fashion from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, when couture designs were inspired by the shape and cut of kimono and incorporated Japanesque motifs in their surface decoration. Two of the pieces included in this section address the use of kimono by Westerners as dressing gowns with a Cincinnati connection. The third section examines contemporary fashion and the continued use of variations on the kimono silhouette along with traditional weaving, dyeing and decorative techniques. The final section demonstrates how Japan continues to inspire the world of fashion through popular design, including manga and anime.

From a nineteenth century gown decorated with Japanese-inspired floral motifs to a 1960s dress tied with an obi-like sash to couture designs as recent as 2016, Kimono: Refashioning Contemporary Style, is a product of international collaboration between Japanese and American institutions. It makes clear that kimono has had a strong presence in fashion and continues to be an inspiration for designers worldwide.

“We are excited to partner with Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI) and Asian Art Museum to tell the story of the influence of kimono on contemporary fashions. KCI is renowned for their collection of Western dress and more than 15 exceptional examples of traditional and contemporary fashion have been added to the exhibition from the museum own permanent collection. The Cincinnati Art Museum have also supplemented the show with paintings, works on paper and examples of Rookwood pottery that help tell this story. From the 1870s to today, the kimono has continued to be a touchstone for fashion couturiers on a global scale,” said Cynthia Amnéus, Cincinnati Art Museum’s Chief Curator and Curator of Fashion Arts and Textiles.

The Cincinnati Art Museum is the third of three venues in the United States to present this exhibition. It was previously on view under the title Kimono Refashioned at the Newark Museum in New Jersey and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

This exhibition’s Cincinnati presentation is organized with the generous support of Huntington Bank and Toyota of Cincinnati. Kimono: Refashioning Contemporary Style will be on view in the Western & Southern galleries (galleries 232 and 233).

The exhibition was initiated by Akiko Fukai of the Kyoto Costume Institute, and was jointly curated by Rie Nii of the Kyoto Costume Institute, Yuki Morishima and Karin Grace Oen of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Katherine Anne Paul of the Newark Museum, and Cynthia Amnéus of the Cincinnati Art Museum—all of whom contributed to the exhibition and exhibition catalogue.

CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM
953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45202
cincinnatiartmuseum.org

Saul Steinberg @ Cincinnati Art Museum

Saul Steinberg: Mural of Cincinnati
Cincinnati Art Museum
Debut: February 16, 2018

Saul Steinberg 

Mural of Cincinnati

© The Saul Steinberg Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Saul Steinberg’s Mural of Cincinnati will be on view to the public in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s newly renovated Schmidlapp Gallery beginning on February 16, 2018. Sponsored by the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Founders Society in honor of its 30th anniversary, the mural will be on display long-term for the first time since 1982.

Saul Steinberg’s Mural of Cincinnati has a one-of-a-kind history. It adorned the wall of the Terrace Plaza Hotel’s Skyline Restaurant, an icon of modernism, starting in the late 1940s. Cincinnati businessman John J. Emery, Jr. commissioned a mural for the hotel’s Gourmet Room from Joan Miró and a mobile for the lobby from Alexander Calder. Saul Steinberg’s mural was the third commission.

Saul Steinberg, a Romanian émigré artist known principally for his witty drawings for The New Yorker, was also expanding his reputation through the exhibition of his work at art galleries and museums. This validation by the art world, combined with his success as a commercial artist, led to commissions for murals. The Cincinnati mural, his second, created a delightful atmosphere in its chic setting by including city landmarks—Tyler Davidson Fountain, the Roebling Suspension Bridge and the Mount Adams incline—amid imaginary architecture and whimsical vignettes of urban entertainment.

When Thomas Emery’s Sons, Inc. sold the hotel to the Hilton Corporation, Emery donated the three works of art to the Cincinnati Art Museum. In 2006, a prestigious Save America’s Treasures Grant funded the conservation of the Steinberg mural, restoring the balance between the delicate linear design and the white background. Steinberg’s Mural of Cincinnati will be reunited with the Terrace Plaza’s Miró mural and Calder mobile, both on view nearby in the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr., Gallery adjacent to the museum’s Terrace Café. 

The museum re-opened the modernized Schmidlapp Gallery on October 12, 2017. The innovative transformation was funded partially by a $1 million grant from the Jacob G. Schmidlapp Trusts, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee along with additional financial support from the State of Ohio.

Installation of the Saul Steinberg mural was generously sponsored by museum Trustee Barbara Weyand and the many donors who matched her gift in honor of the 30th Anniversary of the Founders Society.

The new space includes a wall of windows for natural light, couches and chairs to encourage congregation, individual looking lounges and detailed curatorial interpretation around singular artworks, new flooring to visually connect to the Bimel Courtyard, lighting and state-of-the-art temperature and humidity systems for the artwork. It also includes MyCAM, which features touch tables to help visitors create thematic art hunts to personalize their museum experience. 

“Adding Steinberg’s Mural of Cincinnati to the new Schmidlapp Gallery reflects our mission of inspiring people, connecting communities, and creating a more vibrant Cincinnati,” says Louis and Louise Dieterle Nippert Director Cameron Kitchin. “Combined with the gallery’s innovative design, we are excited to continue to welcome patrons in a new way to discover, discuss and connect with the museum’s encyclopedic art collection.”

In celebration of Steinberg’s mural, over 200 of the museum’s donors and supporters will attend a special private Schmidlapp Gallery Opening event, including dinner by-the-bite, a cocktail hour, live entertainment and a ribbon cutting ceremony the evening of February 15. 

This winter, six 7½-foot-square Formica laminate mosaics by Curtis Goldstein and Matt Lynch have occupied the north-eastern wall of the gallery. In June 2018, these works will be shown as part of a suite of 10 artworks by Goldstein and Lynch at the Weston Art Gallery presented in conjunction with an exhibition of studies, photographs and historical material from the Reiss project.

The Schmidlapp Gallery, originally part of the Schmidlapp Wing or Schmidlapp Extension, was the first expansion beyond the museum’s original 1886 building. The gallery has been home to sculpture, antiquities and, more recently, museum “icons” by Van Gogh, Gainsborough, Warhol and Tiffany.

Cincinnati Art Museum
953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org

Thomas Bayrle: Chrysler Tapete, CAM, St Louis, MO

Thomas Bayrle: Chrysler Tapete (1970)
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis - CAM, Saint-Louis, MO
September 6 - October 27, 2013

THOMAS BAYRLE

Chrysler Tapete, 1970. 

Silkscreen print on paper, 15 3/8 x 33 7/8 inches. 

Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown's enterprise. 

© Thomas Bayrle

This fall the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) presents Chrysler Tapete (1970) by the renowned German artist THOMAS BAYRLE as part of its ongoing Front Room projects series. 

A key figure in European Pop Art—often referred to as Grey Pop—Thomas Bayrle has worked in painting, sculpture, fashion, and graphic design since the mid-1960s. Chrysler Tapete is one of a number of wallpaper works Thomas Bayrle has created since the late ’60s. In it, single elements are repeated until their individuality collapses into a massive whole, suggesting tensions between a positive, collective experience and a feeling of stifling uniformity. 

Thomas Bayrle’s work explores how physical space, scale, and pattern can affect the viewer and provides an emphatic reminder of how our culture of mass production and consumption impacts our understanding of the world. With its dense visual presence, Chrysler Tapete contrasts with the spare forms on view in the concurrent Place is the Space exhibition. Both exhibitions coincide with the tenth anniversary of CAM’s building this fall and provide new ways to consider the space itself. 

THOMAS BAYRLE (b. 1937, Berlin) lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at the Wiels Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels, Belgium (2013), the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain (2009), and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2008.) Thomas Bayrle has participated in such significant group exhibitions as documenta 13, Kassel, Germany (2012), Making Worlds, La Biennale di Venezia, 53rd International Art Exhibition, Arsenale, Venice, (2009), and the Fourth Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art: Von Mäusen und Menschen / Of Mice and Men, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2006).

Thomas Bayrle: Chrysler Tapete is organized for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis by Dominic Molon, Chief Curator.

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis - CAM
Museum's website: www.camstl.org