BE A PART OF HISTORY
Art Institute plans to re-create this photo from the opening of its Michigan Avenue home 125 years ago this Saturday — with your help
The Art Institute of Chicago on Saturday plans to re-create a photo taken on Dec. 8, 1893, when the landmark building on Michigan Avenue first opened its doors as a museum.
The idea to re-create the photo came from the museum’s membership team, which brainstormed ways to commemorate the 125th anniversary. Plans for the photo were made for July but had to be rescheduled because of inclement weather.
The Art Institute settled on the building’s actual 125th anniversary as the perfect time for the reshoot. The photo will be taken at 10 a.m. Saturday. Museum officials said anyone who wants to be in the photo is welcome to come.
In 1893, the Art Institute had a “limited collection,” said Kati Murphy, the museum’s executive director of public affairs. Murphy said the most celebrated collection at the time was a selection of plaster cast reproductions of sculpture and architectural statuary. The building had been used for the World’s Columbian Exhibition the previous summer.
The catalog for opening day listed two floors of exhibition space (some galleries were not yet open to the public, so works are noted in “hallways” and “corridors”), covering everything from Old Dutch Masters and oil paintings to Egyptian and Assyrian sculpture and Greek and Egyptian antiquities.
The Art Institute’s collection has grown to 300,000 works of art, Murphy said, one of the largest collections in the country.
A special lecture hosted by the Art Institute’s James Allan, executive director of planned giving and special gifts, about the building’s history is being held at noon Saturday for museum members only. Information is available artic.edu.