Art Institute of Chicago is one of the world’s leading cultural and educational institutions. The museum’s vast permanent collection includes paintings and sculpture, prints and drawings, decorative arts, photography, and textiles from different cultures that span 5,000 years of art history.
The European painting collection, with examples from the Middle Ages to the present, is best known for its works by French Impressionists and Postimpressionists. The large collection of prints at the Art Institute contains unique examples by masters of the 1400’s and important series by French artists of the 1800’s. The Asian galleries show arts of the Far East, with notable collections of bronzes, sculpture, and Japanese prints. Furniture, glass, porcelain, and metalwork are displayed in the galleries of the museum’s Department of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture in the Rice Building. The American art collection includes two of the most famous paintings in art, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and Grant Wood’s American Gothic. The Modern Wing, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, opened in May 2009. The building houses the museum’s collection of modern and contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography.
The Art Institute was founded in 1879 as a museum and school called the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. It took its present name in 1882. The Art Institute moved to its current site in downtown Chicago in 1893. It is governed by a board of trustees and supported mainly by private funds. The School of the Art Institute grants degrees in the visual and related arts.
