Art Institute of Chicago, Art museum in Grant Park, Chicago, US
The Art Institute of Chicago occupies a Beaux-Arts building in Grant Park whose Michigan Avenue facade carries a triangular pediment inscribed "ANNO DOMINI" and "MDCCCXCII" above three arched doorways and three arched windows. Behind it, the Modern Wing's glass curtain wall slopes upward along Monroe Street, with a cylindrical metal bar resting in a shallow pool at its base.
The museum was founded in 1879 as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, adopting its current name in 1882 under president Charles L. Hutchinson. The building, designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, was completed for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and the institute moved in on October 31, 1893. The Modern Wing by Renzo Piano opened in 2009.
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is legally part of the museum, one of the few unified arts institutions left in the United States. The school began in 1868, charging $10 a month for daily classes. The Logan Medal of the Arts, given with the Logan family from the early 1900s to the 1960s, became one of the most distinguished awards for American artists.
The Michigan Avenue entrance faces Millennium Park, and the Modern Wing entrance is at Monroe and Columbus streets. The building spans several floors, with the Thorne Miniature Rooms and photography galleries in the lower level and the George F. Harding arms and armor collection on the ground floor.
The two bronze lions flanking the Michigan Avenue entrance were made by Edward L. Kemeys. When a Chicago team reaches the playoffs, the lions are dressed in that team's uniform. Just inside the doors stands a reconstruction of the Chicago Stock Exchange trading room, designed by Louis Sullivan in 1894 and demolished in 1972; salvaged parts were brought to the museum.
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