Overview:

This exhibition showcases archival items linked to eight women who made significant contributions to the Art Institute, or who had a lifelong association with the museum or school. Three curators (Bessie Bennett, Katharine Kuh, and Christa Mayer Thurman), three donors (Kate Buckingham, Annie Swan Coburn, and Margaret Day Blake), one teacher/author (Helen Gardner), and one artist (Georgia O’Keeffe) put their stamp on this institution, often without much fanfare or public recognition. Bessie Bennettt was the first female curator in a major U.S. museum; Helen Gardner wrote Art through the Ages while an instructor at the school; and Annie Swan Coburn enriched the museum’s permanent collection with a fabulous gift of first-rate Impressionist paintings. The stories of these women are told through the display of material from the museum’s Institutional Archives.

Art Institute students working on a mural painting in 1918.

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