Chicago - Day 4 - Art Institute

On Day 4, we spent over 6 hours at the Art Institute of Chicago - and we could have stayed much longer! (Or come back a second day!) We were so excited to see so many artists... and specific paintings!... that we recognized.

Alexandra took a photo of each suit of armor.

I got excited to run into a few Precissionism paintings by Demuth that I had studied just a few weeks earlier!

We saw lots of paintings by Georgia O'Keefe.

American Gothic by Grant Wood - I'd always thought this was a farmer and his wife, but it is a farmer and his daughter!

Alexandra looking at one of the miniature room displays - there were probably 50 or so and they were so small and detailed! We both love miniatures.

I was excited to recognize this as a painting by Thomas Cole, Father of the Hudson River School of Art I also studied recently. And, my mom could even remember his 5 components of art I'd shared with her. He thought each piece of art should have: still water, a water feature, mountains, sky, and trees. (This is from memory - I'll have to look at my notes to make sure I got it right.)

Alexandra in front of Mary Cassatt's The Child's Bath - one of our favorites! We stayed in front of this one quite a while.

Alexandra (and I!) got so excited to see this one. It is one of Picasso's paintings of Sylvette, "The Girl with the Ponytail." This one was titled Portrait of Sylvette David. We came to love this painting by reading the book Picasso and the Girl with the Ponytail by Laurence Anholt. Great book and great story!

A painting by Picasso we see in books - Mother and Child.

This painting is called Rainy Street by Caillebotte. I took it because it was on the cover of a brochure Alexandra was carrying around. We bought the tour book and Alexandra loved looking through it and finding paintings that were in her book. It was like a scavanger or treasure hunt!

Another one Alexandra got very excited about since we'd studied it. This one is Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando by Renoir.

Another Picasso (who we're currently studying) from his Blue Period - The Old Guitarist.

Another example of Seurat's Pointilism which Alexandra was thrilled to recognize - Bathers at Asnieres.

Another we recognized - Van Gogh's Self Portrait.

And another we recognized - Bedroom in Arles by Van Gogh.

LOTS of Monet's!!!

And, a highlight was seeing Seurat's large painting, Sunday afternoon on La Grande Jatte. My mother has memories of seeing this painting when she was a little girl, and I hope Alexandra always remembers this special day when we saw so many incredible pieces of art!