INTRODUCTION

THE ART INSTITUTE of Chicago obviously boasts some impressive paintings.

But it’s certainly not the only place in town to take in breathtaking works of art.

Murals and mosaics are seemingly everywhere in the city these days thanks to a public art explosion over the last few years that’s transformed once-barren exteriors of businesses, viaducts, retaining walls, garages, train stations, schools, apartment buildings, and even some houses and high-rises into canvasses of color and meaning.

Many suburbs have also followed suit. One of the cool things: No matter the locale, there’s no ticket for admission — these are open-air galleries, most accessible by car or bicycle, even foot.

Sure there have been murals in the Chicago region dating back decades.

Step into many older post offices in the area — from Lemont to Uptown, Wilmette to downtown — and you’ll see historic murals created during the New Deal era.

And since the late 1960s and early 1970s, Chicago has been a launching point for socially and politically conscious murals — from “The Wall of Respect,” an iconic African American mural that once existed on the South Side, to powerful public paintings in Humboldt Park speaking to Puerto Rican pride and independence.

But in more recent years, the themes have broadened significantly, while the numbers and locations of murals and mosaics have just skyrocketed.

Building owners began to better appreciate public art on their structures. The Chicago Public Schools system began to see the benefits of installing artwork on the outside of new and refurbished schools — creating a more welcoming environment for students. The CTA sought out artists to beautify L stations. Public perceptions evolved — and many companies also started enlisting street art in their marketing campaigns.

No matter where the public art was and what it represented, the Chicago SunTimes took notice.

Two years ago — July 2019 — we launched our “Murals and Mosaics” project in which we started chronicling as

many pieces of public art as we could. We photographed murals and mosaics, researched their background and pinpointed them on an interactive online map.

Today we have roughly 800 murals and mosaics on the ever-growing Sun-Times map, which is viewable on our website and embedded into each online story we

write as part of this project.

To that end, we’ve published a colorful feature on the web and in the Sunday Sun-Times every week for the last two years, showcasing the artwork and the artists behind it.

So far, Sun-Times writers past and present have done more than 100 of

these stories, highlighting murals across the region — in South Shore and Pilsen, Little Village and Evanston, the West Side and Homewood, Chatham and Bronzeville — and dozens of established and up-and-coming artists.

We’ve also highlighted important issues conveyed by the art — from racial justice and immigration to environmental stewardship and wearing masks amid the pandemic.

Not all of the artwork has such depth — sometimes it’s just intended to provoke thought or convey beauty.

Either way, a fun aspect of this project has been you — the reader — flagging us on new or newly discovered artwork. Without such tips, this series would be much lesser. So thank you, and please continue to drop us a note at murals@ suntimes.com whenever you see a mural or mosaic you think we don’t know about.

We plan to continue to capture the beauty of our streets, and hope you enjoy our compilation of public art.

Robert Herguth,

staff reporter

RICH HEIN/SUN-TIMES In 2016, Dutch artist Collin van der Sluijs painted this sprawling mural at 1006 S. Michigan Ave. titled “From Bloom to Doom,” featuring two types of birds whose numbers have plummeted in the Chicago area: the yellow-headed blackbird and the red-headed woodpecker. A high-rise development next door threatened to obscure the artwork, but at last check, it’s still there in all its brilliance.

ANNIE COSTABILE/SUN-TIMES ON THE COVER: A 2018 mural by artist Jordan Nickel, who goes by the professional name Pose. It has words playing on the old comic book series “Picture Stories from American History.” The painting, at the corner of Lake and May streets, tries to raise questions about “how do we see our actions” in this country “and how are people going to view these actions?”