You are here

Visit > Maps, Guides, and Apps > Mini-Tours

Mini-Tours

Looking for a fun introduction to the Art Institute or a new way to explore the collection?

Download our FREE Art Institute Tours app, available for Apple and Android devices, and enjoy 50 personalized tours of the collection that make use of the museum's free Wi-Fi and indoor positioning system to provide step-by-step directions from one artwork to the next.

Or, find 80 different themed mini-tours, available as PDFs, below.

Please note: Works featured in past mini-tours may be off view due to gallery renovations or regular rotations of the museum's collection. Works in the most recent mini-tour are currently on view. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Mini-Tour PDFs

Six Degrees of Francis Bacon
February, 2010

While the game might be more conventionally played with a Bacon of the Kevin variety, this tour shows how the small world phenomenon is just as easily demonstrated through the 20th-century English painter Francis Bacon, known for his gruesome, unsettling images.

Seven Deadly Sins
January, 2010

As the New Year begins and resolutions are made, this guide takes a look at works of art that portray a few vices to avoid in 2010.

Museum Minors
December, 2009

Let’s face it: the winter holidays are never more fun than when you are a kid—no school, no responsibilities, just sweets, surprises, and swag. In honor of your favorite lads and lasses, enjoying the holiday season, we offer this tour of some of the museum’s memorable minors.

Cracking the Code
November, 2009

Ever since The Da Vinci Code hit the bestseller list, everyone is looking to unlock the mysteries hidden in works of art. Use this guide to crack the code on some the museum’s most symbol-filled objects.

Off with Their Heads
October, 2009

Inspired by the playfully disembodied human heads that practitioners of Victorian photocollage whimsically grafted on to animal bodies or morphed into household objects, this guide reveals the bounty of beheadings in the collection, from the ghoulish to the gorgeous.

Pages

`