The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the world’s largest, most comprehensive and most loved art museums. Home to the greatest Impressionist collection outside of Paris, the Art Institute also holds work by many of history’s greatest artists; highlights include Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, Henri Matisse’s Bathers by a River, René Magritte’s Time Transfixed, Mary Cassatt’s The Child’s Bath, and many others.
The Art Institute of Chicago also offers visitors a unique collection of works by celebrated artists from Chicago, such as Harry Callahan, H.C. Westermann, Ed Paschke, Jim Nutt, Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Julia Fish, and others.
Highlighted Chicago architects include: Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Jeanne Gang, Dirk Lohan, Bertrand Goldberg, among others.
Contemporary masterpieces are on view in the spectacular Modern Wing.
Travel the globe through galleries devoted to the art of ancient Greece, Japan, Africa, and the Americas. View the much loved miniature Thorne Rooms, and more.
Advance ticket purchase is required for the public. Members do not need tickets.
Image: Francis Picabia, Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic), 1913. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Armand Bartos. © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
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Impressionist artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894)—known and beloved by many Art Institute visitors for his monumental painting Paris Street; Rainy Day—takes center stage in this major exhibition exploring the very personal interests and relationships that shaped his world.
Caillebotte was unique among his Impressionist peers. At a time when modernity was synonymous with fashionable young women and new forms of entertainment, he focused instead on a more intimate and individualized sphere: his family and friends, his fellow sportsmen, the bourgeois pedestrians strolling in his neighborhood, and the workers who came to his house or whom he observed in the street.
Despite being born into the wealth built by his father, Caillebotte resisted the idleness associated with the leisured class. He was not only an active member of the Impressionist group but also participated in several activities as a high-level amateur, including rowing, gardening, and sailing. In all of his pursuits, Caillebotte gave his all, taking on the role of leader, organizer, and sometimes financier; he also captured these passions in paint, whether documenting the toil of boating, the serenity of tending a plant, or the concentration of a card game.
Caillebotte was equally invested in his personal relationships, both familial and non-familial—and again these relationships, especially with the males he interacted with as son, brother, employer, colleague, and friend—are the focus of many of his artworks.
One sees in multiple paintings his two brothers and other family members as well as a wide circle of friends, often depicted in Caillebotte’s own home—in a favorite chair, by a recognizable window, or on an often-portrayed sofa. Most intimately, and most unusually for the time, Caillebotte also painted nude men in the privacy of their bath.
This exhibition, which opened at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris in October 2024, includes more than 120 works—paintings, works on paper, photographs, and other ephemera from throughout Caillebotte’s career. In addition to recognizable works like Floor Scrapers and the Art Institute’s Paris Street; Rainy Day, the show presents lesser-known but pivotal works like the Musée d’Orsay’s recent acquisition, Boating Party, and the Louvre Abu-Dhabi’s The Bezique Game, as well as many works from private collections that are rarely seen by American audiences.
Together, these works open a new window onto Caillebotte—as a complex figure with many interests, as an Impressionist who painted like no other Impressionist, and as an artist who captured his own, very distinct Paris.
Image: Gustave Caillebotte, Boating Party, about 1877–78. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Purchased thanks to the exclusive patronage of LVMH, 2022, RF MO P 2022 5. Photo courtesy of GrandPalaisRmn (Musée d’Orsay) / Sophie Crépy
Read CGN's spring interview with Gloria Groom in the spring/summer 2025 magazine.