Displaying items by tag: art institute of chicago

In 1913, the Art Institute of Chicago became the first American art museum to present the work of the young Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). One hundred years later, the museum is celebrating its important relationship with the artist with the exhibition Picasso and Chicago.

Picasso and Chicago features 250 works by the artist who went on to become one of the defining figures in 20^th century art. Paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and ceramics from the museum’s holdings as well as private collections in the city will be on view. This is the first comprehensive Picasso exhibition organized by the Art Institute in nearly 30 years.

The Art Institute of Chicago began collecting works by Picasso after the seminal 1913 Armory Show, which revolutionized American modern art. Works on view from the museum’s collection include The Old Guitarist (1903-04), Mother and Child (1921), Red Armchair (1931), and the sculpture Cubist Head of a Woman (Fernande) (1909). The exhibit also features impressions of The Frugal Meal (1904), one of only three examples in the world of the well-known Blue Period etching actually printed in blue ink.

Picasso and Chicago will be on view through May 12, 2013.

The new installation of the Grainger Gallery of Folk Art at the Art Institute of Chicago opened in August 2009 in a renovated gallery space that wraps around the historic Ryerson and Burnham library in the original 1893 building of the museum. Endowed by David and Juli Grainger, the reinstallation of the collection prompted a re-assessment of the museum’s American folk art collection and provided the opportunity for new research and a publication, also funded by the Grainger Foundation. For Kith and Kin is the first publication to document the growth of folk art collecting in Chicago and at the Art Institute during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Over sixty objects are illustrated with short essays accompanying each entry. An essay on the collecting of folk art in Chicago describes the previously unpublished history of the collection’s origins and growth.

On February 19, 2013 the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) will present one of Vincent van Gogh’s (1853-1890) most well known paintings, Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles, to the public. The work, which is being loaned to the DIA by the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, will be exhibited in the museum’s Dutch galleries along with three other van Gogh paintings owned by the Detroit Institute.

Van Gogh created three nearly identical paintings of his bedroom; the first rendition was completed in 1888 and is currently part of the Van Gogh Museum’s collection in Amsterdam. After the initial work was damaged in a flood, van Gogh made two copies of the painting, one of which is in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection and the other, which belongs to the Musée D’Orsay.

The additional works to be exhibited alongside Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles are The Diggers, an interpretation of Jean-Francois Millet’s (1814-1875) painting by the same name, The Portrait of the Postman Roulin, which was painted in van Gogh’s house in Arles, and Self-Portrait, which was completed just before van Gogh moved to Arles from Paris.

The van Gogh paintings will be on view at the DIA through May 28, 2013.

A Chicago Park District panel recently approved an admission fee hike for the city’s Art Institute. On February 1, 2013 prices for adult visitors who are residents of Chicago will potentially climb from $16 to $18 and admission for out-of-state patrons will jump from $18 to $23. Chicago’s Committee on Programs and Recreation also approved the fee increase and the district’s full board is expected to pass the hike this afternoon. The Art Institute hasn’t raised its admission prices since 2009.

Art Institute officials said that the admission fee increase would help compensate for the rising costs experienced by any organization over time. For example, the museum now pays about $200,000 a year for water usage and sewer maintenance, utilities that used to be covered by the city of Chicago.

Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry is also facing an admission fee increase, which has been approved by both the Chicago Park District panel and the Committee on Programs and Recreation. The Science and Industry raise would see prices go from $13 to $15 for city residents and from $15 to $18 for non-residents.

The Dallas Museum of Art announced today that it will nullify its $10 general admission fee, effective January 21, 2013. The museum will also launch an online rewards program that could even make membership free.

In recent years, many institutions have reversed their decision to charge visitors and are now free to the public. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Walters Museum of Art in Baltimore, and the Detroit Institute of the Arts have all decided that free admission will help their institutions become more widely accessible, which, in turn, will keep visitor numbers up.

While it appears that the aforementioned museums have started a trend, many institutions in major tourist destinations are not so quick to jump on the free entry bandwagon. In New York, the Museum of Modern Art charges $25 and the Guggenheim Museum charges $22. San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, another major tourist attraction, charges $18. Other big-name museums that require visitors to pay are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

The latest update to Google’s browser-based map service allows visitors to navigate museums across the world with their smartphones. While sprawling institutions made up of various wings and galleries can appear cumbersome, Google hopes to alleviate confusion by making virtual floor plans for dozens of museums and libraries in nine countries available to users.

The recent update includes interior views of shopping malls, airports, train stations, and convention centers, but the presence of museum layouts is particularly welcomed. While 30 museums in the United States are currently mapped out, museums that are not already included can upload their own floor plans if they wish to be included in the project.

Maps of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Art Institute in Chicago, the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, the British Museum in London, the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, and the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Japan are currently available.

The renovated Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art opened to the public yesterday. The inaugural exhibition, Gods and Glamour, features 150 loans from both private collections and public institution as well as pieces from the museum’s collection. Objects such as marble sculptures, paintings, Greek pottery, jewelry, and silver come together to illustrate what life in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean world was like. A second inaugural exhibition of late Roman and early Byzantine art loaned by the British Museum is also on view through August 25, 2013.

Designed by the architectural firm, Why, the $10 million renovation was made possible by a gift from the Jaharis Family Foundation with some funds going to acquisitions and educational programs. The new 13,707 square-foot galleries include state-of-the-art display cases by Goppian Museum Workshop in Milan.

The updated Greek, Roman, and Byzantine galleries represent the final phase of the complete reinstallation of the Institute, which began in 2008 after the then new modern wing was constructed.

Twelve years ago, Rene Magritte’s five-volume catalogue raisonné was published. Overseen by British critic, David Sylvester, the project prompted hundreds of individuals to submit what they claimed to be works by Magritte to the Magritte Foundation. Drowning in potential yet unconfirmed works, a committee formed to vet each of the newly surfaced works.

 As it turns out, many of the submissions proved to be authentic and they have been assembled in the book, René Magritte: Newly Discovered Works, Catalogue Raisonné VI. Published by the Menil Foundation, Mercatourfonds, and the Magritte Foundation, the book is being distributed by Yale University Press and features 130 of the finds including paintings as well as works on paper. Several of the pieces were known to exist but could never be located.

 A Belgian surrealist, Magritte became well known for his witty and thought-provoking images, many of which feature black bowler hats, apples, curvaceous pipes, and bright blue skies. Coincidentally, the Museum of Modern Art is organizing Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary 1926–1938, the first major show to explore the artist’s early Surrealist period. Curated by Anne Umland, the show will open at MoMA next September and will travel to the Menil in Houston and the Art Institute of Chicago.    

Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997), a key figure in the 1960s Pop Art movement, is best known for his bright, comic book-esque images. The Tate Modern hopes to shed light on Lichtenstein’s less iconic works with a retrospective that will be opening February 21, 2013 in London.

Lichtenstein: Retrospective will feature 125 paintings, sculptures, and rarely seem drawings from the artist’s career that spanned more than fifty years. Organized by Tate Modern and the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate’s is the largest Lichtenstein show since the Guggenheim’s 1993 retrospective when the artist was still alive.

Works on view will include Lichtenstein masterpieces such as Look Mickey (1961), Whaam! (1963), and Drowning Girl (1963). The Tate’s inclusion of Lichtenstein’s early and late works will offer patrons a glimpse of the artist’s entire oeuvre. Visitors might be surprised by Lichtenstein’s early abstract expressionist paintings or his later foray into art nouveau-inspired sculptures, Chinese landscapes, and female nudes. For an artist who is associated with a very particular style, Lichtenstein led a surprisingly wide and varied career.

As the world economy began to tank about five years ago, a curious thing happened at the top level of the international art market: It started to boom. At the annual spring art auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's in New York and their branches around the globe, deep-pocketed bidders snapped up Braques and Bacons, Klimts and Kandinskys, often at record prices.

Now with the global recession officially over but the American and European economies still shaky, auction records for blue-chip modern and contemporary art continue to be shattered. Just a few months ago, a pastel version of Edvard Munch’s "The Scream" (1895) fetched an astounding $119.9 million at Sotheby’s, by far the highest price ever paid at auction for a work of art, surpassing the winning bid of $106.5 million for Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" (1932) at Christie’s two years earlier. A week after the gavel fell on the Munch, Mark Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow" (1961) went for nearly $87 million, the artist’s personal best at auction.