ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO was incorporated on May 14, 1879, for the "founding and maintenance of a school of art and design, the formation and exhibition of objects of art, and the cultivation and extension of the arts of design by any appro priate means." The building, of Italian Renaissance design, faces Adams street on the lake front, and houses more than I 5o galleries, schoolrooms, studios and offices, the Ryerson art library, the Burn ham architectural library, Fullerton Memorial hall and the Ken neth Sawyer Goodman Memorial theatre. The paintings include examples from the Italian, Dutch, French, British and American schools, with notable single collections, as the Ryerson loan col lection of primitive and modern paintings, the anonymous collec tion of Spanish masters, the Birch-Bartlett collection of paintings by post-impressionists and the Butler gift of paintings by George Inness. The print department contained in 1928 15,00o drawings, lithographs and rare etchings by old and modern masters and a library of graphic arts. The Japanese print collection is the second largest in the country, numbering 3,000. Other rooms are given over to sculpture, both originals and casts, collections of oriental and classical objects, historic furniture, ceramics, textiles, a chil dren's museum and a restaurant. The school of the Art Institute is the largest in the country, having an annual registration of 4,000, and giving instruction in all phases of art, including the theatre.
The institute has over 17,50o members, and holds 6o or 7o cur rent exhibitions a year. Educational work is carried on through a series of lectures, which include co-operation with the city schools and special courses given by the department of museum instruc tion, extension lectures and the Scammon Lecture Foundation. The yearly attendance averages i,000,000. The museum is open every day in the year on payment of a small fee, except on Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, when admission is free.
An amended charter (1925) covers exhibitions, libraries, thea tres, lectures and lecture halls, workshops, lunchrooms, entertain ments, the granting of diplomas, the receiving and administration of trust property.