Researching Art Institute History

The annual reports for the years 1883–1936 and the years 2003 to the present are freely available online in full text. Reports for the intervening years are available in print in the library collections, and a full set of reports is available on the open shelf reference collection in the reading room. Although the contents differ over time, these reports often contain information on significant donations, events, exhibitions, floor plans, museum attendance, school curriculum and enrollment, staff, and trustees. Many reports are illustrated.

Note that the report year varies over time: from 1883–1913/1914 the annual reports cover June through May; the 1914 report covers June 1914 through January 1, 1915; from 1915–1945 the reports cover the calendar year of January through December; a single report covers January 1946 through December 1947; and from 1954/1955 to the present the annual reports cover the fiscal year of July through June.

Collection catalogs for the Art Institute of Chicago collections have been published since the nineteenth century, and these can be found by searching the library catalog for the subject Art Institute of Chicago — Catalogs. Significant titles for works describing the art collection include Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture, and Other Items in the Museum (1893–1894); General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (1901–1914); Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, Paintings, and Drawings (1920, annotated with lists of museum buildings and additions from 1892–1942, and a list of statues on the front loggia); A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (1925 and 1932); An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (1935–1956); Paintings of the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (1961 with typescript supplements dated 1965–1971), the Pocketguide to the Art Institute of Chicago (1983–2013) and The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide (1993–2013).

To locate departmental catalogs, search for the department name and the term catalogs (for example, Art Institute of Chicago. Department of Textiles — Catalogs). More recently, the Art Institute has published a series of digital collection catalogs that is freely accessible online. These contain interactive elements as well as scholarly content on the provenance, technical composition, and historic context for the artworks.

A list of past exhibitions can be browsed online. Many of these exhibition records include links to digitized exhibition catalogs and, occasionally, a description of the exhibition and installation photographs are included.

A set of print exhibition catalogs from January 1883 to the present is available on the open shelf reference collection in the reading room. To locate Art Institute exhibition catalogs in the library catalog, search the phrase “Art Institute of Chicago” AND exhibition.

From its beginning, the Art Institute of Chicago was committed to exhibiting the work of contemporary artists. In February of 1888 the museum staged its first

Annual Exhibition of Watercolors by American Artists, and in May of that year the museum staged its first Annual Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture. Both of these were juried exhibitions of work submitted by American artists. In 1897 the museum added a juried exhibition for local artists, the Annual Exhibition of Works by Artists of Chicago and the Vicinity, in which many SAIC students and alumni exhibited their works. In 1921 the watercolor exhibition was opened to international artists, and it continued as an international exhibition through 1943.

All three of these exhibitions are indexed in Peter Hasting Falk’s Annual Exhibition Record of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1888–1950, which also includes information on exhibition juries, prize winners, and works illustrated in the exhibition catalogs. The last Annual Exhibition of Works by Arts of Chicago and the Vicinity took place in 1985, and the Annual Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture ended in 1995. A database index for these two exhibitions from 1951 until they ceased is available at the reference desk.

The first Director of the Art Institute of Chicago published a history of the institution in 1910’s The Collections Illustrated: With A Historical Sketch and Description of the Museum. Eugenia Whitridge’s 1946 dissertation, Art in Chicago, provides a history of the museum with a focus on its patrons, and Helen Horowitz’s Culture and the City, 1976, also delves into the museum’s relationship with its donors. More recently, The Art Institute of Chicago: A Centennial Perspective and One Hundred Years at the Art Institute of Chicago brought the history of the museum into the second half of the 20th century, and Erin Hogan’s The Art Institute of Chicago: From 1879 to the Modern Wing (2009) covered the most recent significant building expansion.

Press releases from June 2012 to the present can be read online, and archives staff have compiled an index of the news releases issued by the museum from 1939 to 1998. This index also is available online.

The Art Institute’s member publication has changed titles numerous times over its history. The following titles all are available online in full text through JSTOR, a subscription database available in the reading room:

Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1907–1951)
Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly (1951–1965)
Calendar of the Art Institute of Chicago (1965–1972)
Art Institute of Chicago Bulletin (1973–1982)

The following titles are available in print on the open shelf reference collection in the reading room:

Mosaic (1982–1987)
Art Institute of Chicago News & Events (1987–2008)
Art Institute of Chicago Member Magazine (2008–present)

From 1966 until 2011 the Art Institute published an academic journal, Museum Studies, which is available online in full text through JSTOR. Print copies of the journal are available for browsing on the open shelf reference collection in the reading room.

The museum employed a clipping service for decades, and the scrapbooks that service compiled are available on microfilm:

Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbook, 1869–1956
Scrapbook of Art and Artists of Chicago, 1875–1995
Secretary Scrapbooks, 1890–1937

The Art Institute Scrapbook and the Scrapbook of Art and Artists of Chicago are indexed in the Ryerson Index to Art Periodicals. In addition to news clippings, the Secretary Scrapbooks contain ephemera such as announcements, invitations, programs, and tickets.

The annual reports for the years 1883–1936 and the years 2003 to the present are freely available online in full text. Reports for the intervening years are available in print in the library collections, and a full set of reports is available on the open shelf reference collection in the reading room. Reports cover school staff, curriculum, and information on associated organizations, such as the Goodman Theatre.

The Ryerson & Burnham Library artist files frequently contain information on graduates and faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These collections of ephemeral material may include published and unpublished documents such as announcements, articles, artist statements and manifestos, brochures, clippings, correspondence, digital media, exhibition catalogs and checklists, interviews, invitations, manuscripts, memorabilia, oral histories, posters, press releases, resumes/CVs, reviews, and slides. These items are typically small in size and not individually cataloged. To find these, search the library catalog for specific artist names, or review the artist file available under the title School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Over a Century: A History of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1866–1981 contains a historical chronicle of the school based on oral histories of faculty and letters from students containing personal recollections. This work also includes a memoir of the years 1926–1943 by Norman L. Rice, who worked his way from student to dean over the course of that time. Appendices list deans and directors, traveling fellowship and scholarship recipients, commencement speakers, trustees who served on the Committee on the School, enrollment statistics, tuition fees, and recipients of honorary degrees.

More recently, the print resource The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which provides a pictorial account of the school’s history from 1866 to 2012, and a freely-available online timeline were published to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

A digital compilation of School of the Art Institute of Chicago publications from 1914 to the present, including exhibition catalogs, periodicals, school histories, and yearbooks, is available here. A similar resource, containing student-produced newsletters, newspapers, and zines published from 1915 to 2018 is available here. A digital repository of SAIC theses from 2013 to the present is accessible in full text from the reading room (off campus, only abstracts are available). The Ryerson holds several SAIC theses in our print collection, and these can be located by searching the library catalog for the phrase Art Institute of Chicago. School — Dissertations.

The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries are not the repository that holds student records. Inquiries regarding transcripts and confirmation of student enrollment may be directed to the Department of Registration and Records at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago at saic.registrar@saic.edu.

Staff in the Institutional Archives of the Art Institute of Chicago have compiled databases of SAIC students for the years 1891–1900, and the reference staff can search these for you. Information available in this database includes the student’s name, home city and state, course of instruction, and teachers’ names.