International studio (54.1914/1915)

A VRastern Renaissance


KEMYS LION, ART INSTITUTE, CHICAGO
privilege of all these advantages. What wonder
that the attendance was nearly one million per-
sons last year.
But the Art Institute does not work alone. The
Municipal Art League links to it sixty clubs of
men and women, representing tens of thousands
of Chicago citizens. Another list of about sev-
enty societies, including the Chicago Society of
Artists, the Water-Colour Club, Society of Etch-
ers, two Ceramic Societies, the Camera Club, and
architects, meet monthly in the club rooms. When
they so desire the art galleries are lighted all eve-
ning and open to them. Many of these groups of
artists, the Chicago Society, the
Water-Colour Club, the Etchers,
Art Crafters, and others, promote
travelling exhibitions, and it is
through their initiative that art
colonies have come into existence
in remote sections—north, south
and west.
Among the associate organiza-
tions is the Antiquarian Society,
composed chiefly of wealthy women,
which since 1888 has collected an-
tique objects of art arranged in a
special gallery at the Art Institute.
It has a catalogue of valuable tap-
estries, paintings, carvings and
strange antiquities. The Friends
of American Art, founded here, and
the parent of at least eight similar
organizations in cities even to Los
Angeles, has an income of not less

than $30,000 a year for the
purchase of paintings bv
American artists. The
Friends of American Art
have hung two or three
galleries with the canvases
of eminent Americans. The
Municipal Art Gallery of
the Municipal Art League
has fostered Chicago art
and has its collection of
paintings purchased at the
annual exhibitions of the
past nine years. The Pub-
lic School Art Society, as
its name suggests, has dec-
orated about 135 public
schools with paintings and
fine reproductions in half-
tone and colour, many of
which it has imported from abroad. Its members
being travelled women of wealth, they have been
able to give time and thought and have made
model collections for schools from the artistic and
the side of the interest of the child. The pictures
owned are valued at $40,000. The Public School
Art Society also sees to the improvement of school
buildings and grounds, and circulates loan collec-
tions of paintings, as well as making permanent
decorations. It sends out lecturers to schools,
and takes children to the Art Institute.
Appeals are often made to the Art Institute for
the loan of paintings, and resulting from these are


FERGUSON FOUNTAIN, “THE FOUNTAIN OF THE GREAT LAKES”
BY LORADO TAFT, ART INSTITUTE, CHICAGO

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