The Art Institute of Chicago was founded in 1879 and is one of the oldest art museums in North America, not to mention one of its oldest. It is located right in the centre of busy, downtown Chicago its main entrances flanked by two magnificent bronze lion statues designed by Edward Kemeys.
The Institute’s incredible collections of approximately 300,000 works of art include treasures such as Pablo Picasso's The Old Guitarist, Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Grant Wood's American Gothic and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. Adding to this, the Art Institute also has five conservation laboratories and is also home to the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, known to be one of North America’s largest art history and architecture libraries. And if that’s not impressive enough, the library also houses books and periodicals, architectural drawings and photographs.
The museum has two entrances, one at the Modern Wing at 159 East Monroe Street and the other to the historic building at 111 South Michigan Avenue. There are plenty of public transport options to choose from, as all lines of the Chicago’s “L” train have stops near to the Museum, the two closest being Monroe Street and Adams/Wabash. In addition, Metra, Chicago’s commuter rail transit serves both the Millennium and Van Buren stations which are also near to the museum.
The Art Institute was founded as part of the project to rebuild Chicago after the city had been destroyed by the Great Fire of 1871, its initial collection consisting simply of plaster casts.