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The museum’s galleries are continually changing as newly acquired works and loaned objects join our spaces and expand the perspectives and stories that we share.
The Art Institute’s holdings of late 19th-century French art are among the largest and finest in the world and feature some of the most well-known and well-loved works in the museum. The works included here are highlights from our wide-ranging collection.
The Art Institute boasts an outstanding collection of American Art—fitting for a classic American city. Find some of the icons below.
The Art Institute was the first museum in the United States to assemble a significant collection of modern art and to put it on permanent display. Today these holdings are among the finest in the world—enjoy highlights from this pioneering collection.
Explore America now, through America then, in this audio tour inspired by the hit musical Hamilton.
Let your imagination take over on this journey through the Thorne Rooms—miniature and, as generations of Art Institute visitors have found, wonderfully transporting.
Surrealists were fascinated by dreams, desire, magic, sexuality, and the revolutionary power of artworks to transform how we understand the world. Learn more with this tour of our internationally renowned collection of Surrealist art.
From celebratory statues to intricate mosaic panels, art was created for a wide variety of functions and contexts during the centuries that the Roman Empire reigned. Explore a few highlights from the Art Institute’s collection of ancient Roman art here.
Comprising works spanning five millennia and all of the continent’s major artistic traditions, the Art Institute’s collection of Asian art is especially wide-ranging. Enjoy a few highlights from this spectacular collection.
The Art Institute’s collection of Korean art spans more than 2,000 years of artistic production and includes exquisite celadon ceramics, striking ink paintings, and contemporary works that carry the artistic heritage of Korea’s past into the present day.
Responding to disproportionate racial and gender representation within Chicago’s modern and contemporary art scene in the 20th century, women seized the gap by forging their own spaces throughout the city. Learn about the history of placemaking in Chicago art spaces through selections from the Research Center’s Libraries and Archives.
Communicating new perspectives, questioning the status quo, speaking out about beliefs, and inspiring others to take action—art and activism often share some of the same underlying motivations.
Chicago has long been a city that fosters and inspires artists, from students who are just starting their careers to acclaimed painters and sculptors. And the present day is no exception—the contemporary artists who call Chicago home make the city a vibrant community that welcomes creativity and big ideas. This tour, featuring a rotating selection of works created since 1990, showcases just a few of the many contemporary Chicago artists whose works are in the museum’s collection.
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 are on view in Bisa Butler: Portraits.
The Art Institute acquired its first work by a black artist—Henry Ossawa Tanner’s The Two Disciples at the Tomb—in 1906, the same year it was made.
Whether a painting, photograph, print, or sculpture—a portrait is often thought of as capturing a physical likeness of an individual.
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.
What are things you do to make a difference in your family, in your community, and in the world?
Join in a civic celebration with this tour featuring works by Chicago artists as well as works intrinsically linked to our city.
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