The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States

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• published: 18 Jun 2013
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The Art Institute of Chicago is an encyclopedic art museum located in Chicago's Grant Park. It features a collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in its permanent collection. Its holdings also include American art, Old Masters, European and American decorative arts, Asian art, modern and contemporary art, and architecture and industrial and graphic design. In addition, it houses the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries. Tracing its history to a free art school and gallery founded in 1866, the museum is located at 111 South Michigan Avenue in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. It is associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is overseen by Director and President Douglas Druick. At one million square feet, it is the second largest art museum in the United States, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The collection of the Art Institute of Chicago encompasses more than 5,000 years of human expression from cultures around the world and contains more than 260,000 works of art. The museum holds works of art ranging from early Japanese prints to modern American art. It is principally known for one of the United States' finest collection of paintings produced in Western culture. Today, the museum is most famous for its collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and American paintings. Highlights included in the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection include more than 30 paintings by Claude Monet including six of his Haystacks and a number of Water Lilies. Also in the collection are important works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir such as Two Sisters (On the Terrace), and Gustave Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day. Post-Impressionist highlights include Paul Cézanne's The Basket of Apples, and Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair. At the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is another highlight. The pointellist masterpiece, which also inspired a musical, Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, is prominantly displayed. Additionally, Henri Matisse's Bathers by a River, is an important example of his work. Highlights of non-French paintings of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection include Vincent van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles and Self-portrait, 1887. Among the most important works of the American collection are Mary Cassatt's The Child's Bath, Grant Wood's American Gothic, and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. The Child's Bath (1892), Cassatt's intimate potrayal, unusual for the time, was first exhibited in 1890s Paris and came into the collection in 1910. Although in the main Cassatt is an impressionist, the work's subject matter and the overhead perspective were inspired by Japanese woodblocks. The more formal portrait, American Gothic (1930), by Wood, depicts what has been called "the most famous couple in the world," a dour, rural-American, father and daughter. It was entered into a contest at the Art Institute in 1930, and although not a favorite of some, it won a medal and was acquired by the museum. Considered an "icon of American culture", Nighthawks (1942) is perhaps Hopper's most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable images in American art; its image is on the cover of the Museum's 20th Century Art Collection retrospective by James N. Wood. Within months of its completion, Nighthawks was sold to the Art Institute of Chicago for $3,000. On May 13, 1942, Hopper wrote to Daniel Catton Rich, the then director of the Art Institute of Chicago, that he was "very much pleased that you like my Nighthawks well enough to acquire it for the Art Institute. It is, I believe, one of the very best things I have painted." The museum's acquisition of Nighthawks "launched" the painting to its "immense popular recognition." Rich found the painting so important, that the Art Institute awarded the image its Ada S. Garret American Art prize. In addition to paintings, the Art Institute offers a number of other works. Located on the lower level are the Thorne Miniature Rooms which 1:12 scale interiors showcasing American, European and Asian architectural and furniture styles from the Middle Ages to the 1930s (when the rooms were constructed). Another special feature of the museum is the Touch Gallery which is specially designed for the visually impaired. It features several works which museum guests are encouraged to experience though the sense of touch instead of through sight as well as specially designed description plates written in braille. The American Decorative Arts galleries contain furniture pieces designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles and Ray Eames.