EVANSTON, ILLINOIS.- The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University will open the exhibit Wolfgang Gäfgen: Portfolios on January 19 and running through March 18, 2007. Wolfgang Gäfgen, born in Germany and living in Paris, creates highly detailed, richly textured depictions of familiar objects. His recognizable subjects — drapery, jackets, suitcases — are treated as abstract form so they appear detached from a particular place, time, or nationality. Gäfgen’s approach represents a post-World War II interest in abstraction and an international perspective. Working primarily in the laborious technique of mezzotint he creates masterful prints with lush surfaces and tonalities.

The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, is the fine arts museum of Chicago’s North Shore, offering focused visual arts programming for the Northwestern University community and the greater Chicago area. The Museum mounts several exhibitions a year, organizes numerous lectures, symposia, and workshops with artists and scholars, and screens classic and contemporary films at Block Cinema. It also reaches national and international audiences through traveling exhibitions, publications, and Web site. The expanding permanent collection — consisting primarily of works on paper — distinguishes the Museum as an important repository of original works of art.