The Art Institute of Chicago

Numéro d'article 10125580

33 Colour Plates 246 Black And White Plates. About this book Among the important art museums and galleries in the United States, the Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the most distinguished. Though many art-lovers are aware that it houses Seurat's tantalizing masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and El Greco's Assumption (the master's first great Spanish commission), the full variety and quality of the Institute's contents are by no means widely familiar, except among experts. Dr Maxon's book describes and illustrates this great collection, which ranges from early Italian and Flemish paintings to Kandinsky and Picasso; from ancient Greek sculpture to textiles and the decorative arts. The Institute contains magnificent examples of the work of the French impressionists, including Renoir's On the Terrace (perhaps the most popular painting in the Institute), and of the post-impressionists, together with the work of many other great artists: Botticelli, Tiepolo, Poussin, David, Rembrandt, Rubens, Velazquez, Turner. The prints and drawings include a fine group of French eighteenth- and nineteenth-century drawings and some of the world's most important prints, among them the only print by Brueghel executed by his own hand, and the Frugal Repast, the most famous print of Picasso's Blue Period. The Institute is also rich in examples of oriental art, many of which are described, including masterpieces from the Clarence Buckingham collection of Japanese prints and an extraordinarily impressive group of ancient Chinese ritual bronzes. John Maxon, who is an Associate Director of the Institute, traces its history, introduces its contents and provides full commentaries on the illustrations. The Director of the Institute, Charles C. Cunningham, has written the foreword. John Maxon, born in Salt Lake City in 1916, was educated at the University of Michigan, where he received his Bachelor's degree. He gained his Master's degree and Doctorate of Philosophy in the history of art from Harvard University. He has been Director of the Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, and Director of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design, and is now Associate Director of the Art Institute of Chicago. Dr Maxon is a specialist in the history of sixteenth-century Venetian painting, and has also worked in the fields of American architecture and Indian Buddhist sculpture. Contents FOREWORD THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO PAINTING AND SCULPTURE PRINTS AND DRAWINGS PHOTOGRAPHY ORIENTAL ART WESTERN ART TEXTILES PRIMITIVE ART APPENDIX INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS