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Your AI tour guide for the Art Institute of Chicago

Photograph a work in the Art Institute of Chicago and Lensmark tells you who made it, when, and why it matters, with every fact linked to its source.

Your tour guide, today

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

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Take a photo and read the work's sourced story

Illustrative photo demo

Illustrative collection

  1. Take a permitted photo Use a photo allowed by the museum's current rules.
  2. Read the sourced history When Lensmark can verify the work, it explains what the sources support and links to them. When it cannot, it says so plainly.
  3. Ask a follow-up Continue with a question about the work's maker, age or significance.
  4. Your Art Institute of Chicago walk saves itself. Just take pictures. Each work is kept with its sourced history, grouped by day.

Images in the demo: A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, Georges Seurat, 1884–86, border added 1888–89 · Paris Street; Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte, 1877 · The Bedroom, Vincent van Gogh, 1889. All three are Art Institute of Chicago works reproduced from public-domain files on Wikimedia Commons, cropped to squares.

What the Art Institute of Chicago collection covers

The Art Institute of Chicago's permanent collection has grown from plaster casts into nearly 300,000 works of art, in fields ranging from Chinese bronzes to contemporary design. Its European painting rooms hold Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884 and van Gogh's The Bedroom. History

The museum began in 1879 as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, founded as a museum and a school together, and took its present name in 1882. Alongside European painting it collects prints and drawings, arts of Asia, photography and media, and contemporary art.

Its collection strengths include painting and sculpture of Europe, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, prints and drawings, and arts of Asia.

  • A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884

    Date
    1884–86, border added 1888–89

    Seurat built his largest and best-known painting from tiny dabs of color. It shows Parisians strolling and lounging in the park called La Grande Jatte on the River Seine, and the museum holds it as 1926.224 in Gallery 240.

    Read the museum record
  • Paris Street; Rainy Day

    Date
    1877

    Caillebotte looked across a rain-slicked intersection a short walk from his own home and caught what was new in the rebuilt city, down to the newly invented retractable umbrella. The museum acquired it in 1964 and shows it as 1964.336 in Gallery 201.

    Read the museum record
  • The Bedroom

    Date
    1889

    Van Gogh painted his own room in the Yellow House at Arles and intended the picture, in his words, to express utter repose. This is the second of his three versions of the scene and hangs as 1926.417 in Gallery 241.

    Read the museum record
  • Water Lilies

    Date
    1906

    Monet dropped the horizon here and painted only the surface of his water garden at Giverny. The museum places it at the midpoint of his developing style and shows it as 1933.1157 in Gallery 243.

    Read the museum record

These are collection records, not confirmation that the works are on display today.

Check the photography rules first

The Art Institute of Chicago encourages photography of the collection for personal, nondistributional, noncommercial use, and permits non-flash photography in all permanent galleries. Flash, tripods, monopods, handheld microphones, selfie sticks and other extraneous equipment are not allowed anywhere in the museum, its gardens or public spaces; equipment must not exceed the size of a personal SLR; and signs mark the few works a lender does not allow to be photographed. Read its current visitor conditions and follow gallery signs before taking a photo. Art Institute of Chicago photography policy

Lensmark needs a connection to answer, so check your signal or any visitor Wi-Fi before you photograph a work.

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