Throughout the year a truly cross-departmental team has contributed to producing numerous articles, videos, highlights, and interactive features, always aiming to inform and uplift, to entertain and engage. As 2021 comes to a close, we’d like to highlight some of the high points and share a dozen examples of our favorite digital content of the past year.
ARTICLES
Read about the projects and stories that fascinate our staff members, whether it’s getting insights into the emotional core of an artist’s creative process, breaking down the chemical makeup behind the magic of colors, or exploring the importance of a moral center to an artist’s work.
#1: The People of Bisa Butler’s Portraits
Curator Erica Warren shares how Butler’s quilts bring new life—and beautiful vibrancy—to the subjects of archival photographs.
#2: Color, Chemistry, and Creativity in Monet’s Water Lilies
Research conservator Kim Muir and conservation scientist Ken Sutherland offer an up-close look at the history and makeup of key pigments in one of Monet’s iconic paintings.
#3: Käthe Kollwitz: An Art of Resistance
The artist knew that she had a difficult task, explains curator Jay A. Clarke, but never flinched from her convictions.
VIDEOS
See the big picture as you go behind-the-scenes to learn about the museum’s new Tiffany window, virtually experience a wildly popular exhibition, and get to know an artist whose fame finally caught up with her vision.
#1: The Hartwell Memorial Window | Artwork Spotlight
Curators Sarah Kelly Oehler and Elizabeth McGoey and conservators Rachel Sabino and Diane Roberts Rousseau offer insight into the extraordinary Hartwell Memorial Window.
#2: Monet and Chicago | Virtual Walk-Through
Experience the highly acclaimed exhibition Monet and Chicago with this virtual tour led by Gloria Groom, Chair and David and Mary Winton Green Curator of Painting and Sculpture of Europe.
#3: Alma Thomas’s Starry Night and the Astronauts | Essentials Tour
Take a closer look at Starry Night and the Astronauts, painted by Alma Thomas in 1972, the same year she became the first African American woman to receive a solo exhibition at a major art museum.
HIGHLIGHTS
Take a digital tour of our collection and linger on the artworks that move you, whether it’s considering the creative link between music and art, the importance of art to our nation’s identity, or the indefinable bond between a city and its art and artists.
Artist Bisa Butler and her husband, a longtime DJ, chose this selection of songs to pair with each of her quilts as well as other works from the museum’s collection, all of which were on view in Bisa Butler: Portraits.
#2: Artists of the Obama White House
The Obamas not only selected two groundbreaking contemporary artists, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, to paint their portraits, but as president and first lady, they also showcased an inclusive art collection while at the White House.
Join in a civic celebration with this tour featuring works by Chicago artists as well as works intrinsically linked to our city.
INTERACTIVE FEATURES
Sometimes it’s all about the details, and the closer you look, the bigger the story gets, whether it’s the exploring the subtleties of portraying skin color, investigating the creation of a painting, or uncovering an artist’s biography in a self-portrait.
#1: 3 Ladies (1970) by Emma Amos
In her nearly life-size print 3 Ladies, multidisciplinary artist Emma Amos questioned perceptions of race through experimental printmaking techniques. Explore this interactive feature.
#2: Who’s Behind Rembrandt’s Signature?
Who painted this mysterious and captivating image? The identification of the artist—called the attribution—often serves as a starting point for tracing the history of a work of art. Explore this interactive feature.
#3: An Artist Defines Himself—Kertész’s Self-Portrait
With this self-portrait, André Kertész declared himself a cosmopolitan artist, surrounded by objects that refer to both his birthplace of Hungary and his new home in Paris. Explore this interactive feature.
BESTSELLER FROM THE SHOP
Did we say a dozen? We thought we’d throw in a non-digital favorite to make it a baker’s dozen.
#13: Catalogue for Bisa Butler: Portraits
This catalogue has been so popular we continually sell out online. At the time of writing, we have a few copies available in our on-site Museum Shop. Drop in the next time you visit our galleries.
Here’s to a healthy and auspicious 2022.
