Attend the opening reception for Franklin McMahon’s RESIST: A VISUAL HISTORY OF PROTEST on Friday, August 2, from 6:00-9:00pm.

Resist: A Visual History of Protest is an exhibition of original artwork by renowned Chicago artist Franklin McMahon (b. 1921 - d. 2012). As an artist-reporter, McMahon was front and center, documenting protest movements that changed America.

In 1955 McMahon covered the Emmett Till Trial for Life Magazine. The 1960’s began with McMahon drawing the construction of the Berlin Wall and continued with his art coverage of Dr. Martin Luther King’s peaceful protests, including the march from Montgomery to Selma across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial.

Five decades of social change are documented in his brilliantly painted graphite-on-paper images through to 2008 when Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debated. In capturing historic events through art or major publications from the Chicago press to national publications, McMahon chronicled current events that nudged society in a more just direction.