American art museums typically have a hodgepodge of second-rate American colonial paintings, clusters of meaningless modern sculptures, and obscure fragments of European churches. Not so in Chicago. The Art Institute of Chicago consists of two wings, the old building and modern art.
Its best to begin early in the morning with modern art before working your way backwards because the crowd hasn’t made it there yet. The modern art galleries include celebrated artists like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Roy Liechtenstein. There are even originals by famed architect Le Corbusier, I’ve been to over 60 museums in his native Switzerland and haven’t seen a single painting by him (though I’ve seen many of his early buildings). I only wish they had included the Canadian Group of Seven and Swiss Ernst Kirchner for modern natural landscape.
Cross the bridge back to impressionism to see Gauguin, Monet, Rodin, and Munch. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat is a popular pointillism hit for the impressionism section of the museum. They have both the oil sketch and the huge four-meter wide oil on canvas. The European art gallery, on the other hand, is thin on religious art by German old masters.
The ancient art gallery downstairs is largely skippable. The Detroit Institute of Arts has more comprehensive interpretations of Asian art and New York has a far more complete collection of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine artifacts. I don’t think ancient objects belong in an art museum, they should be in a history museum instead.
Where visitors should spend time are the two floors of American art. I loved the collection of Mid-century Modern and French-influenced Rococo furniture. American Gothic and pieces by Jackson Pollock are also featured in this section. I think it would serve the museum well to exhibit musical instruments and Detroit-style industrial design to complete the journey from independence to the modern-day.
