The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

Wonderful collection, interesting special exhibits, and the restaurant is good too. I especially liked the old masters and medieval collections. The impressionist collection was OK.

The art was so beautifully arranged and continous that you cann spend hours in one room. The heat helped the experience because on the steps leading to the museum there were musicans and everyone was so curteos and nice.

the art museum was GREAT!!! it was so interesting!!!! they have paintings and artifacts in there from the b.c. time era!!!!! they also have the following: ~ lillie paintings from monet ~ american gothic (the man holding a pitch fork standing buy a woman neither smiling) ~ many from picasso ~ a few van gough ~ and SOOOOOOOO much more!!!!! i strongly recomend the city pass and go chicago card!!

Spend a lot of time looking at all the painting from all the artist from the 1700-1900!! It was fantastic and can't wait to go back!! its a must see

This is absolutely a must do when in Chicago!! Pay the $6 extras and get the self tour and you won't be disappointed. It was very cool to be able to walk around and look at the beautiful works of arts and choose which ones you want to hear a little about.

Everything about this Museum is perfect. This is the best Museum Downtown. Take a day this summer and check it out. We love walking through the Museum. Every year during the Taste of Chicago we walk around the Museum to cool off.

Some of the world's most famous paintings are housed in this museum, including an incredibly strong collection of Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings, with seminal works by Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, and van Gogh, among others. Some of these images are so familiar in popular culture, that when you see the originals at the museum, it's like meeting a dear pen pal face-to-face for the first time. A few of the museum's best-known paintings in the permanent collection are Grant Wood's American Gothic, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, Pablo Picasso's The Old Guitarist, and Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte-1884. The museum also has impressive collections of medieval, Renaissance, and modern art. Less well-known are its fine holdings in Asian art and photography. The Thorne Miniature Rooms show interior decoration in every historical style; they'll entrance anyone who's ever furnished a dollhouse or built a model. Be sure to visit the Rubloff paperweight collection; a Chicago real-estate magnate donated these shimmering, multicolor objects. And don't miss the Stock Exchange Room, a splendid reconstruction of the trading floor of the old Chicago Stock Exchange, which was demolished in 1972. The Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Building has three floors of exhibition galleries, a large space for temporary exhibitions, and a skylighted central court dotted with sculpture and plantings. The Galleries of Contemporary Art showcase post-WWII-era paintings, sculptures, and videos. The museum store has an outstanding collection of art books, calendars, and merchandise related to current exhibits, as well as gift items. The two lion statues flanking the museum's main entrance are probably the most well-known, and photographed, in the world. And the museum capitalizes on that fact, festooning the mighty creatures with wreaths at Christmas and Chicago Bears helmets when the football team is on a winning streak. The lions have been here ever since 1893 when the institute's main building was constructed for the Columbian Exposition by Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge.

All I remember about the place are the lions outside and the gift shop. I love art, so I can either surmise that my wife and I were only there to check out the gift shop at the end of a long day of sightseeing or the art collection didn't impress me. I choose the first option.

If you visit Chicago, be sure to take at least 4 hours to visit this place. We've spent 3 hours there, but we couldn't even see all the of the paintings. Although I'm not a great lover of art, I was totally charmed. Seeing those masterpieces in real, is completely different than seeing them in books & etc. Note: Entrance is free on tuesdays...

I have made countless trips to the art institute over the last 3 years and still haven't seen all there is on display. The collection includes some of the most famous paintings in the world and is frequently the stop for major exhibits of individual painters and other artistic endeavors (pottery, photographs, etc). It is very inexpensive to visit, and if you go on Tuesdays, it's free!! I can't recommed this art musuem strongly enough to lovers of art. The choices are plentiful, whatever your interest.