The Art Institute of Chicago "Behind the Lions"

One of the pleasures of visiting the museum, even for me after many years, is that one may find the unexpected. Peruvian ceramics, Chinese jades, Tang Dynasty horses, choice Japanese prints, virtually a complete history of Photography, architectural artifacts, and the finest collection of European & American painting, sculpture, decorative arts, textiles and furniture to be had anywhere in the world.

Most visitors are surprised by the variety of cultural wealth contained in the Art Institute of Chicago and even familiar locals, like myself find it a constant source of discovery.

I am not going to begin to guide your tour, but journal and illustrate for you, a few of my personal diverse choices from some of the museum’s celebrated inhabitants.

Quick Tips:

As you enter the museum, pick up a FREE Floor Plan, available in French, Spanish, German, or Japanese which contains the basic locations of collections and information. To get more out of your day, purchase a thin museum guide which gives more detailed info for .96.

Go directly to the Circular Information Desk for the Schedule of daily Events.

ADMISSION: Adults: -- Children, Students (with ID) and Seniors (over 65): Children five and under are free. Members are always free. Tuesdays are still free

MEMBERSHIP: Purchasing a Family for a year may be a savings if you are visiting with a large family group, plan to return during your trip, or plan to purchase items in the gift shop.

HOURS: M T W F daily 10am-4:30pm; Sat 10am-5pm; Sun 12pm-5pm

Thursdays are the late day now ! 10am-8pm

In the summer months The Museum Shop has marvelous Winter merchandise sales, including past exhibit poster, books Christmas Cards, gifts and ornaments at up to 75% off. Members always receive a 10% discount at the Museum Shop, even on discounted items.

Best Way To Get Around:

Driving: Grant Park Garage below level with exits form garage direct across from museum.
CTA http://www.transitchicago.com
Elevated Train on Wabash Avenue 1 block west"Adams Street" stop

When arriving at the museum, go directly to the Circular Information Desk for the Schedule of Daily Events. The guides are very helpful in helping you get the best ticket deal and alert you to any special events that day. There are also knowledgeable docents and guards in the various rooms throughout the museum that will help you find that piece of art you are dying to see. If you are not sure, ask. Sometimes the piece may be out on loan to another museum somewhere else in the world!

If you just can’t tear yourself away from all the wonderful art or want to have an enjoyable alfresco dining experience, go down to lower level. Tucked away on the west side you will find a hidden oasis where from late May through early fall, weather permitting, the Garden Restaurant extends into McKinlock Court. Green umbrella-topped tables are set around the splashing "Fountain of the Tritons" by Carl Milles creating a cool, elegant atmosphere for a chilled drink or a hot meal.

There are some tasty sounding choices for light snacks or full lunches. The menu runs the gamut from straight-up (grilled London broil) to more adventurous (salmon–bacon sandwich with sugar-cured smoked salmon, homemade guacamole, lettuce, tomato,and herb-lemon mayonnaise). I wanted something light this warm July afternoon & chose a Baked Pear Tart & Spinach Salad with pecorino Romano cheese & candied walnuts topped with sesame-lime dressing at just $7.95.

Preferring red wine, I chose a glass of Côtes-du-Ventoux for $6.50. The wine was surprisingly light in body & had a snappy acidity. It was a natural with my salad, which was just the right size for a satisfying meal in a refreshing atmosphere to allow me to continue my art-quest for the rest of the day.

Thursdays in the summer, jazz music floats up from the Garden Restaurant, where a full bar & special restaurant menu contribute to appreciation of the live entertainment. There is no cover charge or minimum, but tables are reserved for restaurant service. No tickets necessary.

When you finish your repast, remember to look up & then go up to west wall of the McKinlock upper level gallery where you will find the gorgeous sapphire-hued stained-glass America Windows. These were designed by Marc Chagall to commemorate America’s bicentennial in memory of Mayor Richard J. Daley, the present mayor’s deceased father.

There is a special golden room in my heart for the Art Institute of Chicago. It is the first building that I remember loving besides my own little home. I loved it so much that at age 9, while my mother thought that I was off bike-riding on summer afternoons, I frequently hopped a bus riding downtown to the museum. I spent many a hot, clandestine day wandering the cool, marble corridors, totally in love with the architecture as well as the art it contained.

An article in the Chicago Tribune, October, 1890 said that after the Columbian Exposition, Chicago will be the "Paris of America". Chicago & its citizen’s wanted & deserved a museum equal to their ambition to build one of the world’s leading cities.

Over a hundred yeas later, AIC is possibly Chicago’s most popular tourist attraction. Constructed in 1893, the planners of the World’s Columbian Exposition hoped that the structure would become the final repository for the treasures exhibited in the Palace of Arts in Jackson Park’s main fairgrounds. Immediately evident is the Beaux-Arts styled pale grey stonework influence by that "White City", forever linking it to the most flamboyant of cultural events ever staged.

At the beginning, the museum’s collection was not of overwhelming quality, & contained plaster cast reproductions of art as was common in European museums in the nineteenth century. But in the 1920’s the luck of the Art Institute would begin to change dramatically.

Bertha Honoré Palmer, was a prominent socialite serving on the board of the Columbian exposition. She was also close friend of Mary Cassatt & became an ardent champion of Impressionism, collecting works by Monet, Renoir, Manet, Degas & many others. She donated fifty-two paintings from her collection in 1922. This group of art treasures, now known as the Potter Palmer Collection, named after her equally famous husband, is universally acknowledge as the foremost & largest installation of Impressionist paintings in the world outside of France.

ASIDE: Bertha Potter Palmer is the only American woman immortalized by August Rodin. The marble bust-sculpture of the American beauty can be appreciated at the Musée Rodin in Paris.

Following Mrs. Palmer's lead & NOT to be out done by a woman, Martin Ryerson, a millionaire and close friend of Monet, donated perhaps the most important collection of European & American paintings, prints, drawings, Asian art, and European decorative arts. Many more extraordinary bequests followed: Japanese Woodblock Prints by Kate & Clarence Buckingham (the brother & sister millionaires of Bucking Fountain Fame), countless ceramics, Chinese bronzes, Japanese & Chinese paintings were generously endowed to the museum by individuals establishing a dazzling Asian Arts collection.

The cherry on the sundae came in 1926 when Henry Clay Bartlett donated Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte . It is widely considered one of the greatest paintings of the nineteenth century & has been the best known painting in the museum’s collection to this day.

Among the most famous works of art in the Art Institute's collections are the first that you will encounter on your visit. The pair of bronze lions standing guard at the main entrance to the museum on Michigan Avenue was unveiled on May 10, 1894 and was adopted almost instantaneously by Chicagoans as a proud symbol of the city's most prestigious art museum. Over the years the lions have come to symbolize the strength of the city, appearing on guidebook covers and tour maps.

Lions as guardians have an ancient history. The fierceness, strength, and grace of the regal animal led people in early history to adopt it as a symbol of royalty and guardianship. The Lion Gate at Mycenae (1300 BC), the parade of lions on the walls of Babylon (6th Cent. BC), and Emperor Asoka's lion columns in India (240 BC) are only a few examples. The Art Institute lions follow that famous tradition.

The lions that guard the entrance today were derived from two lions that were previously sculpted for the Palace of Fine Arts at the World's Columbian Exposition. The lion that watchfully stands on the north side of the entrance with his tail arched in attention is said to be "On the Prowl", while the other big cat that guards the south side of the museum was christened "Defiance" .

Their creator Edward Kemys was a self taught sculptor who was the most famous of the 19th-century school of animal sculptors. His artistic philosophy was to shun any sculpture that needed a professor to explain it.

I am certain that the artist would approve all the years of attention that the lion pair has had. Countless hands have rubbed away the patina on their tails and millions of photos have been taken by tourists and residents alike take standing beside these icons. They have there own special annual winter ceremonial day when the "Wreathing of the Lions" announces that the Christmas season in Chicago has officially begun. The Holiday lights can then be lit and shopping begins in earnest!

Way back in 1986, these lions where the first to celebrate the Bear’s Super Bowl victory by proudly donning custom made blue and orange team helmets. And more recently, when the entrance portico was under going reconstruction in 2000 the lions were one by one gingerly, carefully relocated to the North Garden by a specialized crew. For the duration of the renovation of their side of the entry, the bronze creatures lived in their own patina dens like their real cousins and being treated just like the celebrities that they are to Chicagoans.

The terracotta ornament for the entry arch has been considered among Sullivan's most brilliant designs. Incorporated into the upper spandrels of the arch are two commemorative medallions, four feet in diameter. The left medallion depicts the house of P.F.W. Peck, the first structure on this site. The right medallion originally carried the legend: "The First Brick Building Built in Chicago Was Built upon This Site". As the Stock Exchange was nearing completion, this was discovered to be untrue, and the right medallion was replaced with the date "1893," the year construction began.

The salvaged LaSalle Street entrance arch was installed in the Art Institute's East Garden in 1977. The garden’s attractive tiered landscaping gives the feeling of a Zen garden - a place where we do not tread, but stop and meditate on the gifts of beauty that Adler and Sullivan gave Chicago. This spot is not just significant for architecture lovers, preservationists or history buffs, I think it is a great reminder that we should treat respectfully and lovingly the beautiful treasures that have come before so our children will have inspiration to produce them in the future.

This is my favorite quote from Louis H. Sullivan’ book Kindergarten Chats and wanted readers who are viewers of his architecture to understand what they are seeing. It also clears up commonly held misconceptions about the original source of the quote "…form follows function" which is many time attributed to other architects.
"Forms emerge from forms. All are related, interwoven, intermeshed, interconnected, interblended. They exosmose and endomose. They sway and swirl and mix and drift interminably. They shape, they reform, they dissipate. They respond, correspond, attract, repel, coalesce, disappear, reappear, merge and emerge: slowly or swiftly, gently or with cataclysmic force. And form follows function."

*NOTE: For TV buffs, this arch is one of the many film locations that had been made more famous by its use in movies and TV, particularly episodes of "ER".

Louis H. Sullivan & Dankmar Adler (1893)

This is one of my favorite places in the museum. Imagine, preserving an entire room as a work of art! Since its preservation, this room has been used for balls, graduation luncheons and fundraiser cocktail parties. And being an alumni of the school, I have seen many a Gucci gown raised to perfection in this setting. But my favorite memories are those when the room and I are alone together. Then I can feel the ghost of the architects, money changers, and restorationists who with me take such pride in this elegant room.

The Trading Room was a place where great economic forces came together and Sullivan wanted to transfer that idea in architecture. He opened up the top of the ceiling to create a recessed, coffered ceiling that expressed the beams and covered them with a suspended skin of stenciled plaster. He also showed the architectural triumph of the room by focusing attention on the four columns that held up the great space. Sullivan overlaid the columns in scagliola, a plaster surface that gives the appearance of marble, and topped each one with a gilded plaster crown studded with jewels of light.

"If one had to choose for preservation an architectural interior of unequaled beauty that represented ideas formative to the course of modern architecture, the Trading Room from the Chicago Stock Exchange would top ones list", states the architect John Vinci. Numerous obstacles nearly lead to the total destruction of the Trading Room when the Stock Exchange building was demolished in 1972.

However many individuals believed that the Trading Room was as important a work as any work in the art museums. With the help of many people like Richard Nickel, architectural photographer & activist Vinci banned together to preserve and reconstruct the trading room as a whole.

The opulent ornament & verdant color scheme reflect Sullivan’s love of nature. The ceiling and the upper portion of the room are stenciled in six different ornamental patterns in fifty-seven shades of green, yellow, gold, rust, brown and blue. I could use many pages of effusive language to describe this wonderful room; it is truly a feast for the eyes and the soul.