The museum encompasses myriad departments with specialists in fields that range from accounting to art history, facilities management to fundraising, science to security. The departments featured here are responsible for caring for and continually researching the art in our collection, creating engaging programming for the public in our galleries, and fostering the next generation of curatorial experts.
-
Conservation and Science
The experts who make up the Art Institute’s Department of Conservation and Science are both the collection’s caretakers and its principal investigators, using innovative techniques to preserve works and the latest technologies to uncover their stories.
-
Curatorial Departments
From ancient to contemporary, Africa to Asia, the museum’s curatorial departments focus their expertise on their individual collections while collaborating to fill the museum’s galleries with a global perspective that spans time, place, and culture.
-
Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Learning Center
The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Learning Center is both the museum’s department and space focused on bringing young people and the adults around them into dynamic and inspiring encounters with art and creativity.
-
Ryerson and Burnham Libraries
The Ryerson and Burnham Libraries constitute a major art and architecture research collection of more than 500,000 print titles, 100,000 auction catalogs, 600 serial subscriptions, and extensive digital collections.
