Educator Resources

Take a short journey into the museum’s beloved Thorne Miniature Rooms.

Using three artworks from the Art Institute’s collection, these videos unpack a central theme and use innovative visual storytelling to highlight the choices artists made to shape form and meaning in their works.

What colors, shapes, and patterns do you see in this window? How would the world outside appear if you were looking through it?

What can you guess about the person who lives in this room? Use clues to learn about Vincent van Gogh and the unique decorations in his bedroom.

Play with texture, smooth lines, and cracked surfaces using Yoko Ono’s Mended Petal. Enjoy the read aloud link for “Inch by Inch” by Leo Lionni and discover how the inchworm can measure this tall sculpture and other objects.

Strike a pose! Explore movement and create your very own sculpture inspired by the work of Alberto Giacometti. Enjoy the read aloud link to make connections between this artwork and the book, “From Head to Toe” by Eric Carle.

This activity uses artworks and your observation skills to practice making inferences about an artwork’s meaning.

This dramatic canvas was painted by José Clemente Orozco during his self-imposed exile in the United States. A leader of the Mexican Mural movement of the 1920s and 1930s, Orozco painted Emiliano Zapata who had become a symbol of the Mexican Revolution.

Discussions about works of art can take many forms. Keeping the following suggestions in mind will ensure that the discussion is meaningful and inclusive. 

Barbara Kruger is known for works that provocatively integrate photographs and text. Her art reveals and challenges the ways in which images used in the commercial media often perpetuate stereotypes, objectify women, and encourage conformity.

Barbara Hepworth’s Two Figures represents the artist’s fusion of geometry and nature. The teak sculpture is composed of two vertical forms that are situated on a platform and punctuated by white-painted circular or oval concavities.

In The Herring Net (1885), Winslow Homer captures the conflict between man and nature in his depiction of two fishermen hauling in a herring net amidst a stormy and powerful seascape.

This figure of Shukongojin looks down from his rock-like pedestal, imposing both a sense of awe and curiosity about the target of his aggressive presence.

In this work, Chicago-based artist Archibald J. Motley, Jr. depicts himself as a debonair yet serious artist, vibrant palette in hand. The traditional composition and lively colors offer a glimpse into the complexity of Motley himself.

This painting features the famous medieval legend of Saint George, who saved a princess about to be sacrificed to the dragon threatening her father’s kingdom.