Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A world’s fair building, two bronze lions and nearly 300,000 works offer several ways into the story of the Art Institute of Chicago.
On this page
A landmark on Michigan Avenue
The Beaux-Arts building by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was made for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, and the Art Institute has been there since 31 October that year.
Edward Kemeys’s bronze lions, unveiled in 1894, guard the Michigan Avenue entrance; Renzo Piano’s Modern Wing, opened in 2009, faces Millennium Park.
The collection
Nearly 300,000 works are cared for by 11 curatorial departments.
Among the best known are A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, American Gothic, Nighthawks and the Thorne Miniature Rooms.
A change of names
The institute was founded in 1879 as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and became the Art Institute of Chicago in 1882.
This history belongs to the museum and the people who built and care for its collection. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
