The Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago traces its roots to 1866, when 35 artists founded the Chicago Academy of Design; after financial setbacks compounded by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the organization reorganized and in 1882 adopted its present name under the transformative leadership of banker and civic patron Charles L. Hutchinson, who served as president until his death in 1924. The museum moved into its present Beaux-Arts building at 111 South Michigan Avenue on Grant Park, constructed for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and designed by the Boston firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge; it opened to the public on 31 October 1893, with a formal gala on 8 December 1893 featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Theodore Thomas. The building famously straddles active Metra railroad tracks. Its most significant recent expansion, the Renzo Piano-designed Modern Wing, opened 16 May 2009, adding 264,000 square feet and making the Art Institute the second-largest art museum in the United States after New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Renowned for its exceptional Impressionist and Post-Impressionist holdings as well as a defining collection of American art, the museum today operates in tandem with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, its founding sister institution, and remains one of the most visited art museums in the world, drawing over 1.3 million visitors in 2023.