In quest for ‘Heroes & Villains,' the Dunn Museum's bat-signal again calls on artist Alex Ross

Chicago Tribune

11-07-2025

Alex Ross thinks humans will always be at the forefront of comic art. The iconic artist, who has spent decades creating lifelike images of both DC and Marvel characters, knows what drives the art form. And, sorry, it isn't the killer artificial intelligence robot Ultron.
'Now that you've got machines that can do everything for us it seems, we shouldn't want to give over everything creative to artificial life,' Ross told the Tribune. 'The comics art form is still holding fast with it being created by people. And real art … is still people making art. Who else is this for except human beings? So we've got to keep that going.'
And Ross isn't stopping.
The legendary artist and North Shore resident — who uses gouache paints to create lifelike depictions of Marvel and DC characters — is constantly creating.
Three of his new works are included in a new exhibit, 'Alex Ross: Heroes & Villains,' which opened recently at the Bess Bower Dunn Museum. Ross' work has not only returned to the museum for the first time since 2019, it also inaugurated a 3,000-square-foot addition to the Libertyville museum.
With 100 portraits spanning 25 years of Ross' career, the exhibit includes pieces that have never been displayed for the public, said Steve Furnett, exhibition and collections manager at the Dunn, and a self-described comics fan.
'They're all from a mural project that Alex did for the Marvel headquarters in New York,' Furnett said. 'He painted individual characters and they are all stitched together in a giant mural. We have those individual pieces that will stand on their own, and we also are creating a giant mural that's a 180-degree arc.'
A key aspect of this show is the sheer size of some of the pieces. 'Our visitors can stand in front of it and can look superhero-ish with all the other superheroes that are in there — and the villains,' Furnett said.
Ross noted that the exhibit includes murals with life-size reproductions of figures that were originally painted smaller.
'This is a humanized version of these legendary figures and you can stand right next to them, and stare at what feels like life-size depictions,' Ross said. 'And it's also great for people getting pictures of themselves with life-size figures.'
Visitors might not expect the Dunn to be a place where they'd be snapping selfies. Nestled in an unassuming building in northern Libertyville, the Dunn was initially known as the Lake County Discovery Museum, and was established in 1976 in Wauconda.
Now named for Bess Bower Dunn, one of the first women in motion pictures and one of Lake County's earliest genealogists, the museum focuses on the county's cultural heritage and has a permanent collection that ranges from dinosaurs to technological innovations, and many things in between.
The collection showcases the ice age (with a cast of a mammoth tusk) and Potawatomi history, featuring intricate Native American beadwork. Other highlights include pictures of the first schoolhouse in Libertyville in 1837 and a photo of the Highland Park resident who narrowly missed securing the patent for the telephone.
'We want to bring people in and tell the story of how people came to Lake County and what they did in Lake County and we want it to be a complete picture with all different perspectives and stories,' said Director of Education Alyssa Firkus.
But Firkus emphasized that the museum also reaches beyond Lake Cook Road for some of its exhibits. The Dunn also is currently hosting 'National Geographic: The Greatest Wildlife Photographs,' which runs through Sept. 21.
The inclusion of villains in Ross' current exhibit may attract a broader audience. Furnett said there weren't any villains originally in the DC portion of the show. 'Alex was kind enough to create (them), and we have them here for the first time,' he said.
Ross created new portraits of Joker and Harley Quinn, and also Superman. He's quick to point out that Superman is a re-creation of his own artwork.
'I've done the painstaking thing of re-creating a painting of mine based upon looking at a copy and then re-creating it so it can be in the show and be a physical, real painting as opposed to a reproduction,' Ross said. 'I was learning how art forgery works. I was forging myself.'
When he's not creating or re-creating, Ross thinks deeply about the relationship between how comics characters are being adapted into film and television, and his own work as a visual artist.
'The way I draw Thor would be more of what he's looked like historically (before the Marvel Cinematic Universe),' Ross said. 'That's where I'm trying to reflect back an influence from the outside world, which still is 'comics born.''
Ross' 2019 exhibit at the Dunn, 'Marvelocity: The Art of Alex Ross,' reached record audiences for the museum.
Furnett remembers the anticipation. 'I got here a couple hours before opening and was sending everyone pictures of the giant line around the museum,' he said. 'Seeing the place filled with a lot of new faces and a lot of visitors in cosplay waiting to get in the Dunn Museum was pretty cool.'
Alex Ross, the legendary illustrator for Marvel and DC comics, has a new 'Fantastic Four' book out just as the Marvel universe takes a next big step. Coincidence?Firkus said the 2019 exhibit was the highest grossing one for the Dunn. Ross appreciates the venue. 'It's incredibly charming and a really great place for, frankly, representing the work and showcasing it,' he said.
He also hopes visitors appreciate the versions of the characters he continues to depict.
'I always want them to be impressed with the level of effort I'm putting in,' he said. 'A lot of that is affected by casting in Hollywood, and I'm always trying to regard what the characters look like from the source material.'
Let's see Ultron try to top that.