Dating from 1879, the Art Institute of Chicago is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the U.S. The museum also admits around 1.5 million guests annually.
Its encyclopedic collection, stewarded by 11 departments, includes numerous iconic works such as Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Picasso’s The Old Guitarist, Hopper’s Nighthawks, and Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Its permanent collection, showcasing close to 300,000 works, is also augmented by 30-some special exhibitions each year.
As a research institution, the Art Institute also has a conservation and conservation science department, five conservation laboratories, and one of the largest art history and architecture libraries in the nation.
Growth of the collection has warranted several additions to the original museum building, which was constructed for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The most recent expansion, the Modern Wing designed by Renzo Piano (below), opened in 2009 and increased the museum’s footprint to nearly one million square feet, making it the 2nd-largest U.S. art museum, after The Met in New York City.
- Visited: Oct 2014
Traces of Places 