At The Intersection of Memory, Place, and Culture, the National Public Housing Museum Shows Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s A Love Letter to My Mother

By Haadia Hyder, Strategic Partnerships & Campaigns Intern 

Acclaimed visual artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s solo exhibition is currently on view until August 23, 2026, at the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Entitled A Love Letter to My Mother, the work in Quinn’s exhibition uses a collage-like painterly style and multiple visual mediums to craft composite portraits, visually conveying the intersection of memory and perception through visual metaphor. His work spans exploration of personal experiences, including the loss of his mother and separation from his family, and fragments of culture, reflecting on found images and community members to craft intimate and intense compositions. The exhibition also includes a recreation, from memory, of the artist's family apartment—a public housing project on the south side of Chicago in 1984.  

This is Quinn’s first solo exhibition in his birthplace, Chicago, exploring his time in his “first studio,” the Robert Taylor Homes, where he grew up and began his creative journey. Nathaniel Mary Quinn was born in 1977 in Chicago, Illinois, received an MFA from New York University in 2002, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 2023. Today, his work can be found in major institutional collections across the world, from Brooklyn to Mexico City to Paris and beyond. 

The National Public Housing Museum opened in its permanent location in 2025, at the Jane Addams Homes at 919 South Ada Street in Chicago’s Near West Side, with a mission to “preserve, promote, and propel the right of all people to a place where they can live and prosper—a place to call home.” The Museum hosts a range of exhibitions and programming, including immersive exhibitions that recreate historic public housing apartments and its Artist as Instigator Residency, which provides a selected artist with a $10,000 honorarium and a $10,000 budget for a project addressing housing inequity and related issues. The Museum also hosts an Oral History Program that archives the lived experiences of people in Public Housing. The Museum’s wide range of resources and knowledge serves as a hub for primary sources on the history of public housing in America. 

You can learn more about Nathaniel Mary Quinn: A Love Letter to My Mother here, find more on Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s work here, and more about The National Museum on Public Housing here. Nathaniel Mary Quinn: A Love Letter to My Mother will be on view until August 23, 2026.