For decades now, the story of art in America has been dominated by New York. It gets the majority of attention, the stories of its schools and movements and masterpieces the stuff of pop culture legend. Chicago, on the other hand . . . well, people here just get on with the work of making art. Now that art is getting its due. Art in Chicago is a magisterial account of the long history of Chicago art, from the rupture of the Great Fire in 1871 to the present, Manierre Dawson, László Moholy-Nagy, and Ivan Albright to Chris Ware, Anne Wilson, and Theaster Gates. The first single-volume history of art and artists in Chicago, the book—in recognition of the complexity of the story it tells—doesn’t follow a single continuous trajectory. Rather, it presents an overlapping sequence of interrelated narratives that together tell a full and nuanced, yet wholly accessible history of visual art in the city. From the temptingly blank canvas left by the Fire, we loop back to the 1830s and on up through the 1860s, tracing the beginnings of the city’s institutional and professional art world and community. From there, we travel in chronological order through the decades to the present. Familiar developments—such as the founding of the Art Institute, the Armory Show, and the arrival of the Bauhaus—are given a fresh look, while less well-known aspects of the story, like the contributions of African American artists dating back to the 1860s or the long history of activist art, finally get suitable recognition. The six chapters, each written by an expert in the period, brilliantly mix narrative and image, weaving in oral histories from artists and critics reflecting on their work in the city, and setting new movements and key works in historical context. The final chapter, comprised of interviews and conversations with contemporary artists, brings the story up to the present, offering a look at the vibrant art being created in the city now and addressing ongoing debates about what it means to identify as—or resist identifying as—a Chicago artist today. The result is an unprecedentedly inclusive and rich tapestry, one that reveals Chicago art in all its variety and vigor—and one that will surprise and enlighten even the most dedicated fan of the city’s artistic heritage. Part of the Terra Foundation for American Art’s year-long Art Design Chicago initiative, which will bring major arts events to venues throughout Chicago in 2018, Art in Chicago is a landmark publication, a book that will be the standard account of Chicago art for decades to come. No art fan—regardless of their city—will want to miss it.

This special issue of Museum Studies explores the broad history and practice of art education at the Art Institute, charting the museum's past, present, and future vision of what museum education can be and do. Drawing from a rich trove of archival, oral, and photographic resources, authors offer a lively account of museum education as an evolving profession, an outlet for aesthetic and political programs, and a crucial element of the Art Institute's public mission from the moment of its founding in 1879. The project, sponsored by the Woman's Board of The Art Institute of Chicago to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary, also explores that group's signal commitment to education and volunteerism at the museum, which has ranged from creating suburban community associations to sponsoring a corps of volunteer docents, from establishing a pioneering children's museum to planning celebrations that open the Art Institute's doors to the widest possible public. A pathbreaking effort, this publication constitutes an important, unique contribution to the history of education in American cultural institutions.

The culmination of a two-part project, this volume takes an extended look at recent, important acquisitions by the Art Institute of Chicago's departments of American Arts, Architecture, Asian Art, European Painting, and Prints and Drawings. Bringing the museum's collecting activities into wide public view, it showcases over forty notable works handpicked by Art Institute curators and the museum's director and president, James N. Wood. Together with its companion issue, which was published in Fall 2003, this publication explores art works acquired between 1992 and 2003, years that have brought significant additions to every area of the Art Institute's holdings. This volume surveys an impressive array of objects, including a glittering Empire card table from early nineteenth-century New York; a fragment of Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel, Tokyo (1923); and important paintings and works on paper by artists as diverse as Lee Krasner, Edvard Munch, Ni Zan, and Rembrandt van Rijn. Illuminated by striking, full-colour reproductions and a lively, accessible text, this is an indispensable guide to the newest and finest the Art Institute has to offer.

An expansive take on American Art Deco that explores Chicago's pivotal role in developing the architecture, graphic design, and product design that came to define middle-class style in the twentieth century Frank Lloyd Wright’s lost Midway Gardens, the iconic Sunbeam Mixmaster, and Marshall Field’s famed window displays: despite the differences in scale and medium, each belongs to the broad current of an Art Deco style that developed in Chicago in the first half of the twentieth century. This ambitious overview of the city’s architectural, product, industrial, and graphic design between 1910 and 1950 offers a fresh perspective on a style that would come to represent the dominant mode of modernism for the American middle class. Lavishly illustrated with 325 images, the book narrates Art Deco’s evolution in 101 key works, carefully curated and chronologically organized to tell the story of not just a style but a set of sensibilities. Critical essays from leading figures in the field discuss the ways in which Art Deco created an entire visual universe that extended to architecture, advertising, household objects, clothing, and even food design. Through this comprehensive approach to one of the 20th century’s most pervasive modes of expression in America, Art Deco Chicago provides an essential overview of both this influential style and the metropolis that came to embody it.

The history of American silver offers invaluable insights into the economic and cultural history of the nation itself. Published here for the first time, the Art Institute of Chicago's superb collection embodies innovation and beauty from the colonial era to the present. In the 17th century, silversmiths brought the fashions of their homelands to the colonies, and in the early 18th, new forms arose as technology diversified production. Demand increased in the 19th century as the Industrial Revolution took hold. In the 20th, modernism changed the shape of silver inside and outside the home. This beautifully illustrated volume presents highlights from the collection with stunning photography and entries from leading specialists. In-depth essays relate a fascinating story about eating, drinking, and entertaining that spans the history of the Republic and trace the development of the Art Institute's holdings of American silver over nearly a century.

An updated selection of key paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago, featuring works from around the globe and dating from ancient Egypt to the present day The Art Institute of Chicago, one of the most beloved and important museums in the world, houses an extraordinary collection of objects from diverse places, cultures, and time periods. This beautiful catalogue opens the doors of the museum to readers, presenting an expansive selection of painted works from around the globe, introduced insightfully by James Rondeau, president and director of the Art Institute. New color photography accompanies entries written by a team of curators, art historians, and educators, which put the works into context. The book showcases a dazzling range of paintings, including an Egyptian funeral portrait, an ancient Mexican wall mural, Chinese scroll paintings, Japanese painted screens, and works by artists such as Caillebotte, Cassatt, El Greco, Gauguin, Homer, Hopper, Johns, Lichtenstein, Matisse, Mitsuoki, Monet, Morisot, Motley, O'Keeffe, Picasso, Pollock, Rembrandt, Richter, Rubens, Sargent, Seurat, Tiepolo, Turner, Van Gogh, Warhol, Whistler, and Wood; contemporary artists featured include Kerry James Marshall, Wanda Pimentel, and Kazuo Shiraga.

The 18th-century Neapolitan crèche at the Art Institute of Chicago, which contains over 200 figures arranged in a panorama of street life, represents the pinnacle of a rich artistic heritage. This luxurious catalogue is the first to study the crèche in the context of art and music history. Essays explore the Neapolitan crèche tradition and examine the design of Chicago's example with reference to other important crèches in Europe and the United States. Entries on individual figures identify the characters and types they represent, as well as their social and historical meaning and religious significance. Other entries address groups of figures, animals, and cultural themes present in the crèche. Together the essays and entries highlight the astonishing realism and potent symbolism of these figures, which range from heavenly angels and the Holy Family around the manger to street vendors and revelers feasting, drinking, and dancing in a tavern.

Previous edition: Master paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago / selected by James Cuno. Chicago, Ill.: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009.

A stunning survey of the indigenous art, architecture, and spiritual beliefs of the Americas, from the Precolumbian era to the 20th century This landmark publication catalogues the Art Institute of Chicago’s outstanding collection of Indian art of the Americas, one of the foremost of its kind in the United States. Showcasing a host of previously unpublished objects dating from the Precolumbian era to the 20th century, the book marks the first time these holdings have been comprehensively documented. Richard Townsend and Elizabeth Pope weave an overarching narrative that ranges from the Midwestern United States to the Yucatán Peninsula to the heart of South America. While exploring artists’ myriad economic, historical, linguistic, and social backgrounds, the authors demonstrate that they shared both a deep, underlying cosmological view and the desire to secure their communities’ prosperity by affirming connections to the sacred forces of the natural world. The critical essays focus on topics that bridge traditions across North, Central, and South America, including materials, methods of manufacture, the diversity of stylistic features, and the iconography and functions of various objects. Gorgeously illustrated in color with more than 500 vibrant images, this handsome catalogue serves as the definitive survey of an unparalleled collection.

A roster of prominent artists, curators, and scholars offers a new, entirely contemporary approach to our understanding of photography and media Focusing on the Art Institute of Chicago's deep and varied collection of photographs, books and other printed matter, installation art, photobooks, albums, and time-based media, this ambitious, wide-ranging volume features short essays by prominent artists, curators, university professors, and independent scholars that explore topics essential to understanding photography and media today. The essays, organized around themes ranging from the expected to the esoteric, are paired with key objects from the collection in order to address issues of aesthetics, history, philosophy, power relations, production, and reception. More than 400 high-quality reproductions amplify the authors' arguments and suggest additional dialogues across conventional divisions of chronology, genre, geography, and technology. An introductory essay by Matthew S. Witkovsky traces the museum's history of acquisitions and how the evolution of the museum's collection reflects broader changes in the critical reception of the field of photography and media. Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago