Working with the detritus of African American life, David Hammons addresses black history, African culture, racism, and poverty with a compassion and complexity unrivaled in contemporary practice.

Beginning in 1917, Henri Matisse spent most winters in Nice, on the Mediterranean coast. He often stayed at the Hôtel Mediterranée, a Rococo-style building he later fondly termed “faked, absurd, ...

Marc Chagall made America Windows to celebrate the US Bicentennial and presented them as a gift to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1977. The windows merge symbols of US history, the Chicago skyline, ...

Holding a mirror, powdering her chest, and surrounded with accoutrements of fashion and beauty, the figure portrayed here does not necessarily inspire thoughts of youth and vibrancy. Rather, as one ...

Working in Paris, Henry Ossawa Tanner grounded his portrayal of a biblical scene in the thoughtful, individual expressions of the figures. The Two Disciples at the Tomb depicts an event from the ...

This female angel is one of many that Abbott Handerson Thayer painted during his career. Originally a painter of animals, Thayer created portraits and then ...

In 1911 Francis Picabia met Marcel Duchamp, who had devised a unique style of painting that combined Cubist elements with pseudodiagrams in humorous compositions. Stimulated by Duchamp’s example, ...

Scholars have widely debated Rembrandt’s choice of either a light- or dark-skinned model for this magnificently ambiguous etching. In the 18th century, its given title changed to variations of ...

This is the principle auditorium of the Art Institute of Chicago, complete with state-of-the-art control booth, cyclorama stage, and screen. This theater space is easily accessed from the Columbus ...

When the Cirque Fernando opened in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris in 1875, the Impressionists, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, quickly became frequent visitors. Here, Renoir featured ...

A pioneering figure in electronic art, Nam June Paik was among the first to use television as an art form. Originally a composer of experimental and electronic music, he created performance work ...

“For me, painting the crosses was a way of painting the country,” recalled Georgia O’Keeffe about the series of compositions featuring Catholic crosses that she created upon visiting the Southwest in ...