Circa 1930 Illinois Central travel poster. Image from amazon.com.

 

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the largest and renowned art museums in the United States. Among its collection are some of the most famous paintings in the world. And no trip there is complete without seeing, George Seurat’s A Sunday of La Grande Jatte (1884-1886),

 

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, by George Seurat (1884-1886). In the Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Image from Wikipedia.

 

American Gothic, the 1930 painting by Grant Wood,

 

American Gothic (1930), by Grant Wood. Image from Wikipedia.

 

and a personal favorite, the 1942 painting Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper.

 

Nighthawks, Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting. Image from Wikipedia.

Former members of the Chicago Academy of Design founded The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1879. That same year they acquired the assets of the Academy of Design at a bankruptcy auction. Changing their name to The Art Institute of Chicago in 1882 they also moved to a building on Michigan Avenue. Needing more space the institute built a new impressive building on the lot directly to the south in 1887. But with the coming of the Columbian Exposition in 1893, the art institute decided on a new home in Grant Park along Michigan Avenue. Constructed for the fair the Art Institute moved to their new and permanent home on October 31, 1893.

 

The Art Institute of Chicago. Built for the 1893 World’s Fair in Grant Park. Image from Tripadvisor.

Now that we’ve seen some highlights, let’s start our virtual visit. I have to say that the Art Institute has one of the most user friendly websites of any museum. Here is the homepage where your “visit” begins at artic.edu.

 

The Art Institute of Chicago homepage.

Once here, click the magnifying glass in the upper right. That will take you to this window.

 

The search page.

 

In the light gray box, I used Art Deco as my keyword search term. And here were my results.

 

The results of the Art Deco keyword search.

 

From here, scroll down to the middle of the page to see the collection items.

 

The start of the Art Institute’s Art Deco collection items.

 

As you can see, this search brought up a total of nearly 35,000 items. If this is too daunting a number (and not all of these are Deco items, this is bringing up any item with the words Art and Deco). There are ways to ratchet this search down. Click on “See all 34846 artworks”.

 

Using filters to refine the search.

 

That will bring you to this window. On the left side of the screen there are filters to help refine the search. I keep “SORT” on relevance and move “DATE” to begin at 1900. Then click “OK”.

 

Results after refining the search using the built in filters.

 

This brought the search down to a reasonable 13,188 items. Now you can spend the next few hours enjoying some amazing Art Deco items and art works. Here are some of the items that caught Chris and my eyes.

 

Chris’s Picks

 

Covered Vase (1916) by Effie Hegermann-Lindencrone.

 

KEM Weber arm chair (1928/1929) for the Grand Rapids Chair Company.

 

1924 Deer and Hinds vase by Boch Frères Keramis, designed by Charles Catteau.

 

Limoges vase by Bernardaud & Co., circa 1930.

 

1925 Les Fontaines plate by Johnson Brothers.

 

Anthony’s Picks

 

Carpet, made in France, circa 1925.

 

André Marty wall panel of Diana the Huntress, 1925.

 

Skycraper Cabinet designed by Paul Frankl, 1927.

 

1930 Table Lamp by Walter von Nessen.

 

Casino Ware Tureen, Royal Doulton, 1932-1934.

 

And collection  item we both picked

 

Cocktail Set Model 326 designed by Russel Wright in 1930.

 

These are only a very few of the many Art Deco items in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection. Chicago is a city that Chris and I have only visited briefly once. It is full of Art Deco treasures, so I know we will be Driving for Deco there once the pandemic is no longer with us.

 

Anthony & Chris (The Freakin’, Tiquen’ Guys)