Chicago Artist Colonies

For more than a century, Chicago's leading painters, sculptors, writers, actors, dancers and architects congregated together in close-knit artistic enclaves. After the Columbian Exposition, they set up shop in places like Lambert Tree Studios and the 57th Street Artist Colony. Nationally renowned figures like Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Anderson, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan became colleagues, confidants and neighbors. In the 1920s, Carl Sandburg, Emma Goldman, Ernest Hemingway, Ben Hecht, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Clarence Darrow transformed the speakeasies and bohemian bistros of Towertown into Chicago's Greenwich Village. In Old Town, Renaissance man Edgar Miller and progressive architect Andrew Rebori collaborated on the Frank Fisher Studios, one of the finest examples of Art Moderne architecture in the country. From Nellie Walker to Roger Ebert, Keith Stolte visits Chicago's ascendant artistic spirits in their chosen sanctuaries.

For more than a century, Chicago's leading painters, sculptors, writers, actors, dancers and architects congregated together in close-knit artistic enclaves. After the Columbian Exposition, they set up shop in places like Lambert Tree Studios and the 57th Street Artist Colony. Nationally renowned figures like Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Anderson, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan became colleagues, confidants and neighbors. In the 1920s, Carl Sandburg, Emma Goldman, Ernest Hemingway, Ben Hecht, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Clarence Darrow transformed the speakeasies and bohemian bistros of Towertown into Chicago's Greenwich Village. In Old Town, Renaissance man Edgar Miller and progressive architect Andrew Rebori collaborated on the Frank Fisher Studios, one of the finest examples of Art Moderne architecture in the country. From Nellie Walker to Roger Ebert, Keith Stolte visits Chicago's ascendant artistic spirits in their chosen sanctuaries.

The bible of creative residency programs returns, with fresh information and new features for artists of all disciplines. More than 300 programs worldwide are described, with 95 leading communities featured in two-page spreads with photographs. The user-friendly layout allows for quick scans of facility descriptions, deadlines, fees, selection processes, odds of acceptance, special programs, and more. For artists seeking to boost their creativity in a fresh and inspiring setting, Artists' Communities is the definitive sourcebook.

An American Art Colony studies three generations of a New Jersey art colony, setting a new model for the analysis of artistic biography and broadening the social context of artistic production. Its contribution rests on the historical value of colony changes over time from informal gatherings to self-conscious purposeful assemblages.

The history of American silver offers invaluable insights into the economic and cultural history of the nation itself. Published here for the first time, the Art Institute of Chicago's superb collection embodies innovation and beauty from the colonial era to the present. In the 17th century, silversmiths brought the fashions of their homelands to the colonies, and in the early 18th, new forms arose as technology diversified production. Demand increased in the 19th century as the Industrial Revolution took hold. In the 20th, modernism changed the shape of silver inside and outside the home. This beautifully illustrated volume presents highlights from the collection with stunning photography and entries from leading specialists. In-depth essays relate a fascinating story about eating, drinking, and entertaining that spans the history of the Republic and trace the development of the Art Institute's holdings of American silver over nearly a century.

Between 1885 and 1915, the village of Giverny (in France) attracted more than 350 artists from at least eighteen countries around the world, transforming from a sleepy community to a vibrant and important artists' colony. The presence of master impressionist painter Claude Monet, who settled in the village in 1883, attracted these young artists, but his presence does not solely explain Giverny's popularity. Artists also sought the opportunity to combine the practice of "plein air" painting with an active social life and enjoyed the locale's picturesque features and easy proximity to Paris. Many artists visited briefly, while others purchased homes and studios, making this Norman village an artistic center.

For decades now, the story of art in America has been dominated by New York. It gets the majority of attention, the stories of its schools and movements and masterpieces the stuff of pop culture legend. Chicago, on the other hand . . . well, people here just get on with the work of making art. Now that art is getting its due. Art in Chicago is a magisterial account of the long history of Chicago art, from the rupture of the Great Fire in 1871 to the present, Manierre Dawson, László Moholy-Nagy, and Ivan Albright to Chris Ware, Anne Wilson, and Theaster Gates. The first single-volume history of art and artists in Chicago, the book—in recognition of the complexity of the story it tells—doesn’t follow a single continuous trajectory. Rather, it presents an overlapping sequence of interrelated narratives that together tell a full and nuanced, yet wholly accessible history of visual art in the city. From the temptingly blank canvas left by the Fire, we loop back to the 1830s and on up through the 1860s, tracing the beginnings of the city’s institutional and professional art world and community. From there, we travel in chronological order through the decades to the present. Familiar developments—such as the founding of the Art Institute, the Armory Show, and the arrival of the Bauhaus—are given a fresh look, while less well-known aspects of the story, like the contributions of African American artists dating back to the 1860s or the long history of activist art, finally get suitable recognition. The six chapters, each written by an expert in the period, brilliantly mix narrative and image, weaving in oral histories from artists and critics reflecting on their work in the city, and setting new movements and key works in historical context. The final chapter, comprised of interviews and conversations with contemporary artists, brings the story up to the present, offering a look at the vibrant art being created in the city now and addressing ongoing debates about what it means to identify as—or resist identifying as—a Chicago artist today. The result is an unprecedentedly inclusive and rich tapestry, one that reveals Chicago art in all its variety and vigor—and one that will surprise and enlighten even the most dedicated fan of the city’s artistic heritage. Part of the Terra Foundation for American Art’s year-long Art Design Chicago initiative, which will bring major arts events to venues throughout Chicago in 2018, Art in Chicago is a landmark publication, a book that will be the standard account of Chicago art for decades to come. No art fan—regardless of their city—will want to miss it.