The Art Institute strives to present exhibitions and programs that increase knowledge and appreciation of a variety of artists, media, styles, and periods having regional, national, and international significance. Exhibitions and programs result from in-depth research and planning and take into consideration the museum's diverse audience. The museum depends on partnering with corporations to be able to provide visitors with these experiences, which is at the heart of its mission. For additional information on sponsorship, please call Amy Radick at (312) 499-4115 or e-mail aradick@artic.edu.

Sponsorship opportunities are available for the following exhibitions, which form the centerpiece of our new season, 500 Ways of Looking at Modern:

Focusing on contemporary artists, the exhibition series, On the Scene, explores the diverse range of work produced by a new generation of photographers. This series also advances the Art Institute of Chicago’s commitment to collecting and exhibiting dynamic work by emerging artists. As an ongoing series, On the Scene works to promote the visibility of contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago, given that at least one museum-owned work by each of the three featured artists is included in every exhibition. This is especially timely with the recent opening of the Modern Wing. As part of the effort to engage visitors, the featured artists participate in public presentations in addition to the insightful curator’s talks that accompany On the Scene educational programming. On the Scene–related press releases, public openings, educational programs, and related media coverage also serve the dual purpose of amplifying the visibility of the current exhibition, as well as promoting increased awareness of our permanent collection of contemporary photography.

Sixty years ahead of the avant-garde, aristocratic Victorian women were already experimenting with photocollage. The compositions they made with photographs and watercolors are whimsical and fantastical, combining human heads and animal bodies, placing people into imaginary landscapes, and morphing faces into common household objects. With sharp wit and dramatic shifts of scale akin to those Alice experienced in Wonderland, these images undermine the rather serious conventions of photography in the 1860s and 1870s. Such images, often made for albums, reveal the educated minds as well as accomplished hands of their makers, as they take on new theories of evolution, the changing role of photography, and the strict conventions of aristocratic society. This exhibition at the Art Institute showcases the best albums and loose pages from collections across the United States, Europe, and Australia.

_{Marie-Blanche-Hennelle Fournier. Untitled page from the Madame B Album, 1870s. Mary and Leigh Block Endowment.}

The first Arts and Crafts exhibition mounted at the museum in more than 30 years, Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago will present designs by the movement’s most notable practitioners, from William Morris and Charles Robert Ashbee to Gustav Stickley and Frank Lloyd Wright. Highlighting a wide range of objects, including ceramics, furniture, metalwork, paintings, photographs, and textiles, the exhibition will focus on Chicago collections, featuring works from the Art Institute, the University of Chicago, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Crab Tree Farm, and other private collections.

_{Frank Lloyd Wright. Spindle Cube Chair, 1902/06. Restricted gift of the Antiquarian Society; Roger McCormick Purchase, Alyce and Edwin DeCosta and the Walter E. Heller Foundation, Robert Allerton Purchase Income, Ada Turnbull Hertle, and Mary Waller Langhorne Memorial funds.}

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) considered Bathers by a River among the five most seminal works of his career. He began the monumental painting, measuring nearly 9 by 13 feet, in 1909, and the canvas would continue to occupy the artist for another 8 years. Today, the picture is one of the definitive works of the Art Institute’s collection of modern art, and yet, the history of this painting—its origins and manufacture—remains an enigma. In recognition of the 100th anniversary of Matisse’s artistic journey, the exhibition Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917 will re-assess this singular masterpiece and delineate its remarkable gestation, construction, and influence. This exhibition is organized by and shown exclusively at the Art Institute and will unite approximately 75 related paintings, sculptures, and drawings to trace Matisse’s artistic production from 1900 through the 1930s. These works, complemented by key pictures by other modern masters like Paul Cézanne, André Derain, and Pablo Picasso, will explore themes related to the painting, including the bather as modern subject, the decorative as a means of abstraction, the influence of North Africa, and the interrelation of painting and sculpting in modern artistic practice.

_{Henri Matisse. Bathers by a River, 1909, 1913, and 1916. Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection.}