Art Institute of Chicago: Van Gogh, Tiffany Glass and the Cultural Center

The Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago is the second largest art museum in the United States, visited by 1.5 million people each year, and home to a permanent collection of nearly 300,000 works spanning 5,000 years of human creative effort. It opened in 1879 as both a museum and a school of fine arts — a dual identity it maintains today, operating simultaneously as a world-class collection and as one of the country's most respected art schools. Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte is here. Grant Wood's American Gothic is here. The largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings outside of Paris is here.

And when I visited, a Van Gogh exhibition and a glass installation over the entryway skylight were both present simultaneously, which meant the building itself was participating in the artwork.

In 1887, Vincent Van Gogh spent three months visiting the suburbs along the Seine. He was one of five avant-garde artists who journeyed from Paris to the suburbs. In his company were George Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard and Charles Angrand. These were some of the extraordinary works I viewed in that exhibit.

Self Portrait Vincent Van Gogh, 1887

It is said that Van Gogh painted this and other self portraits because he wanted to practice painting people and was short on money so he couldn't afford to hire models.

Restaurant de la Sirène à Asnières , Vincent Van Gogh, 1887

Asnières Study (Laundry Boat), Paul Signac, 1882

Man Painting a Boat, Georges Seurat, About 1883

Separate wings of the Institute held various other treasures. Below are some of the pieces that I especially enjoyed:

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Hermann Dudley Murphy 1891/96

Hermann Dudley Murphy painted this portrait of his roommate Henry Ossawa Tanner while both were studying in Paris in the 1890s. What the caption does not mention is who Tanner was: the first African American painter to gain international recognition, born in Pittsburgh in 1859, who moved to Paris because the racial climate of the United States made a serious artistic career nearly impossible. His most celebrated work, The Banjo Lesson, hangs at the Hampton University Museum in Virginia. This portrait of him as a young man in Paris — before that recognition arrived, while he was still becoming what he would become — carries a different weight knowing the story that followed.

Nightlife, Archibald John Motley Jr., 1943

I have seen other pieces by this artist and, like this one, they are all alive with vibrant color and movement.

American Gothic, Grant Wood, 1930

The artist painted this piece of a stiffly posed farmer and his daughter which he said reminded him of “tintypes from my old family album.” He used his sister and his dentist as models for the painting. This painting has been used in advertising to sell everything from cereal to beer.

Self Portrait, Beauford Delaney, 1944

Beauford Delaney was the son of a Tennessee preacher who relocated to New York in 1929 where he befriended artistic geniuses including Jackson Pollack, Georgia O'Keeffe and author, James Baldwin.

Picture of Dorian Gray, Ivan Albright, 1943-44

If you haven't read Oscar Wilde's book, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which he published in 1890, I recommend it. It was the film adaptation released in 1945 for which Ivan Albright painted this piece.

Swing Music (Louis Armstrong), Arthur Dove, 1938

This piece is the artist's "visual portrayal of the trumpeter's [Louis Armstrong] improvisatory genius."

Maquette for "Constellation", Santiago Calatrava 2018-19

If this looks familiar to most Chicagoans, it is because a much larger version is at River Point Park.

Santiago Calatreva made a scale version of "Constellation" which is at the Institute of Art. The original, 30-foot sculpture was his first Chicago work.

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The America Windows, Marc Chagall, 1976

Marc Chagall is a Russian-born artist who fled to the U.S. during World War II. He created these 8x30 foot windows for the U.S. bicentennial to give thanks for a gallery named in his honor. For the movie buffs out there, these windows were the backdrop in the Ferris Bueller's Day Off scene where Ferris and Sloane kiss.

Chicago Culture Center

The building that has been home to Chicago's Cultural Center since 1991, was originally opened in 1897 as Chicago's first, central public library.

The walls are adorned with Cosmati mosaics set into white, Italian Carrara marble celebrating famous authors and philosophers such as Homer, Plato and Cicero, as seen above. The marble was sourced from the same quarries that Michelangelo used to create his sculptures.

A closer view shows the detail and just how many tiles were required to create this masterpiece.

The imperfections in the tile reveal that each piece was indeed painstakingly, hand cut and put into place.

Preston Bradley Hall, Tiffany Dome

This dome, and its kaleidoscope of colors, was created collaboratively by architects Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge of Boston and the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company of New York City. Sadly, this pictures does not convey just how breathtaking this 38-foot, diameter, glass dome is.

Grand Army of the Republic Rotunda and Memorial Hall

This second, leaded glass dome, is another collaboration by architects Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge of Boston and the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company of New York City. Different in style, but equally beautiful, this is another example of the masterful way Tiffany creates luxurious, stratified and gilded colors.

Theaters

From the Chicago Cultural Center, I headed around the corner to visit one of the city's famous landmarks. The Chicago Theater's vertical sign — 74 feet tall, 2,400 incandescent bulbs — is visible from several blocks in any direction and has been guiding people to live performance on State Street for over a century.

The current sign replaced the original in 1996 because the latter was found to have significant interior deterioration. The original sign was thereafter donated to the Smithsonian Museum. This theater was titled the "Wonder Theater of the World" when it was built. Over 100 years, and thousands of performances later, it is still a spectacle.

The Nederlander Theater, originally named the Oriental Theater, opened just after the Chicago Theater in 1926. It was owned by Balaban and Katz and designed by the architecture firm of Katz and Katz, the same team behind the Chicago Theater. The inside has been described as an East Asian inspired art museum. Though the theater fell into disrepair for many years, it was resurrected in 1996 and renamed the Nederlander after James M. Nederlander, the founder of Broadway in Chicago.

I did not see a performance at either theater during this visit. That is the sentence I am most likely to act on when I return to Chicago, which I intend to do.

Chicago's art and cultural scene is larger than any single post can contain — the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago History Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum all remain on the list.

What I did see confirmed what the architecture and the food had already suggested: this is a city that takes its culture as seriously as it takes anything, which is very seriously indeed. The final Chicago post — Alinea, the three-Michelin-star restaurant I had been planning to visit for over a decade — brings the series to its proper close.

The complete Chicago travel guide — covering architecture, parks, food, art, and Alinea — is here.