The Art Institute was founded as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1879. The name was changed in 1882, and shortly after, the institution was already in need of a new home for its expanding collection and growing student body. It was moved to its present home at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Adams street in the year 1893. Its entry is flanked by two famous bronze lions and it remains the front door of the museum even today. The present building has undergone eight major expansions.
The permanent collection has grown from plaster casts to nearly 300,000 works of art in fields ranging from Chinese bronzes to contemporary design and from textiles to installation art. Together, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the museum of the Art Institute of Chicago are now internationally recognized as two of the leading fine-arts institutions in the United States.
Art Institute
Lion one of a pair, South Pedestal
Lobby inside
Buddha, Tang dynasty
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva Simhananda
Buddha, Shakyamuni
Birth & first seven steps of Buddha
Head of Buddha
Kartikeya
Varaha
Standing Buddha
Muse Melpomene
Falling warrior
Artemis
Leda $ the Swan
Three Satyers fighting a serpent
Truth
The Freedman
Machinist
Machinist'e apperentice
Night life, 1943
American Gothic, 1930
Man of sorroes
Nighthawks, 1942
Nydia, the blind girl
Deposition
Eve, Auguste Rodin
