Art for which the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than the finished art object.&nbsp;

Conceptual / Performance

<h3>Developed during the Italian Renaissance, primarily for aesthetics or beauty, the highest art was that which allowed the full expression and display of the artist's imagination.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – Pre 18th Century

<h3>Graphic Art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional. It includes calligraphy, photography, painting, typography, computer graphics, and bindery.&nbsp;</h3>

Graphic Art

Works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects.

Artists' Books

The exploration of video art and music or sound set, including visual music, abstract film, audiovisual performances and installations.

Video / Sound

The objects produced by shaping pieces of clay that are then hardened by baking, or the skill of making such objects.

Ceramics

An artistic form in which hard or plastic materials are carved, modeled, casted, and constructed into a three-dimensional art object.&nbsp;

Sculpture

The process of creating artworks by printing, typically on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting.

Printmaking

<h3>Something made in an earlier period that is collected and considered to have value because it is beautiful, rare, old, or of high quality.</h3>

Antiques and Artifacts

Imagery where the subject matter centers around a view or depiction of Chicago.&nbsp;

Chicago Scenes & Regionalism

Old Masters refer to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800.

Old Masters

Socio-Political art is used to help the public understand a particular social or political issue.

Socio-Political

<h3>The attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, or implausible, exotic, and supernatural elements.</h3>

Realism

<h3>Artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real objects and is representational.</h3>

Figurative

<h3>Individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. Glass art ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces, to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including glass jewelry and tableware.</h3>

Glass

<h3>Artwork that often deals with Rococo, the Enlightenment, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – 18th & 19th C.

From the Tate Museum's website: Modernism refers to a global movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the twentieth century sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists around the world used new imagery, materials and techniques to create artworks that they felt better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.

Modernism

<h3>Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue to challenge boundaries.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – Contemporary

<h3>Art that is concerned with the design and decoration of objects that are chiefly prized for their utility, rather than for their purely aesthetic qualities including, ceramics, glassware, metalware, furniture, textiles, clothing, and more.</h3>

Furniture & Decorative Arts

<h3>Emerging art is work by artists who are still building their artistic careers and have not yet reached a more established and widely recognized status.&nbsp;</h3>

Emerging

<h3>Fiber art refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labour on the part of the artist as part of the works' significance, and prioritizes aesthetic value over utility.</h3>

Fiber Arts / Textiles

The quality of dealing with ideas rather than events. Freedom from representational qualities in art.

Abstraction

<h3>Art by African-American artists.</h3>

African-American

<h3>The art and science of designing and making buildings, or the style of a building.</h3>

Architecture

<h3>Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, an emphasis on light and its changing qualities, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience.</h3>

Impressionism

From the Tate Museum's website: Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often characterized by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity.

Abstract Expressionism

Numismatics

Relating to Africa or people of African descent.

African

Eastern European art is a product of recent history. It can be traced to the division of Europe into the Western and Soviet spheres of influence of the allied victory over Germany in World War two.

Eastern European

LGBTQIA+

Feminist

Considered one of the most influential periods of art, featuring movements including Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism.

Early 20th Century

Skill and experience, especially in relation to making objects by hand.

Craft

<h3>The skill of making plans, drawings, or arrangements to show how a building or product is made.</h3>

Design

Asian art is diverse and rich, spanning thousands of years and dozens of countries. It is known for its ritual bronzes, beautiful ceramics, calligraphy, jades, textiles, painted landscapes, garden design, pagodas and stupas, and woodblock prints.

Asian

Italian

<h3>An artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space.</h3>

Installations

An art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance.

Performance

Some of the most prominent, highly influential artists, who challenged preconceptions and pushed the limits of visual art, shaping the art world of our time.

Modern Contemporary Masters

Created in accordance with the vision of the artist as a photographer, using photography as a medium to bring something to life that only lives in the artist's mind.

Photography

The design movement in interior, product, graphic design, architecture, and urban development from roughly the 1930's to 1965.

Mid-Century

A movement in art and literature that flourished in the early 20th-century. Surrealism aimed at expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control.&nbsp;

Surrealism

An innovative discipline which seeks to unify a large range of art forms. This is creatively achieved by combining an array of artistic insights and crafts such as film, literature, performance, music and sound, drama, visual arts, or design.

Multi-Media

<h3>The depiction of landscapes in art—natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composition.</h3>

Landscape

Plein air is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look.

Plein-air

Printed 2-D artwork which is designed to be affixed to a vertical surface, may consist exclusively of images, or images and text.

Poster / Lithography

<h3>A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person.</h3>

Portraits / Portraiture

<h3>These works are often stunningly beautiful, and encourage the viewer to engage with the rich history of research and experimentation that led to the piece’s conception.</h3>

Scientific

<h3>The Art of the American West is defined by geographical subject, consists of historic and contemporary works of art which focus on varying expressions of individuals, landscapes, ideals, and myths of the American West.</h3>

Western (The American West)

<h3>Borrowed from Wikipedia: In visual arts, music, and other mediums, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It derives from the reductive aspects of modernism and is often interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism and a bridge to postminimal art practices.</h3>

Minimalism

<h3>Occupying the space between fine art and the everyday, functional art refers to aesthetic objects that serve utilitarian purposes. The genre is remarkably inclusive, it encompasses everything from furniture and lighting to dishes and even books.</h3>

Functional Art - Jewelry / Fashion

A range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works.

Wildlife / Nature

Watches & Timepieces

Sports Collectibles

3-Dimensonal

Rare Books / Manuscripts

Western European art represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production. After the mid-19th century modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.

Western European

Comics

Large Scale (over 6')

Visual art created in public locations, usually unsanctioned artwork executed outside of the context of traditional art venues. Common forms and media include spray paint graffiti, stencil graffiti, poster art, sticker art, street installations, and sculpture.

Pop / Street Art / Graffiti

Indigenous & Native

Chicago Imagists

East Asian

Medieval / Renaissance 

Non-Western

Southeast & South Asian

<h3>Art produced by self-taught or naïve art makers. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.</h3>

Folk / Outsider / Self Taught

American Regionalism

Literary Arts

Mosiac

Includes manuscripts, prints, drawings, collages, and paintings on paper.

Works on Paper

Prints and Drawings

West Asia  & North Africa

Middle Eastern & Islamic

Land Art

<h3>Artistic expression of Mexico, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, as well as Latin and Hispanic Americans living in other regions. Latin American art has roots in the many different indigenous cultures that inhabited the Americas before European colonization in the 16th-century.</h3>

Hispanic/Latinx

As a regional art museum that opened its doors in 1997, the Elmhurst Art Museum is committed to showing emerging and established contemporary artists, with a focus on the Chicagoland area and featuring local architects in major exhibits and programming in the McCormick House gallery. The development of their projects, public talks, involvement with our education center, and participation in public and school projects, along with the Museum’s growing collection of over 1,000 artworks, have been key foundations of the organization’s public offering. Image: Elmhurst Art Museum with Sentrock’s Bird City Saint. Image courtesy of Elmhurst Art Museum. Photo by Liz Chilsen.

Elmhurst Art Museum

The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA) preserves and promotes contemporary art as a shared expression of the Ukrainian and American experience. UIMA develops, utilizes and encourages artistic talent through exhibitions, concerts, readings, lectures and films to serve the cultural needs of our community and city, and thereby strengthen cultural understanding and diversity. Image: Installation view of Agency: Craft in Chicago from the 1970s-1980s and Beyond. Photo: Eric Bladholm

Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA)

Founded in 2000, Richard Norton Gallery offers a diverse selection of notable American and European Impressionist and Modern paintings, drawings and sculpture from the 19th and early 20th Centuries. The gallery provides a wide range of services, including consultation, appraisal, consignment and purchase of artwork. Artists include: Gertrude Abercrombie, Egon Adler, George Aldrich, Macena Barton, William Carter, Claude Bentley, Egon Adler, Karl Buehr, Francis Chapin, Georges Maurice Cloud, Alexander Corazzo, William Dalziel, Eugene Dana, (William) Davenport Griffen, Manierre Dawson, Werner Drewes, Hananiah Harari, Harold Haydon, Margo Hoff, Carl Holty, Richard Hunt, George Josimovich, John A. Knudsen, Richard Koppe, Albert Krehbiel, Kenn Kwint, Jan Matulka, Edgar Miller, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Rudolph Pen, Frank Peyraud, Rolph Scarlett, William S. Schwartz, Gerrit Sinclair, John Storrs, Morris Topchevsky, R. LeRoy Turner, Charles Turzak, Clayton Whitehill, among others. Annual participant in&nbsp;EXPO CHICAGO Image: Charles Turzak&nbsp;(Am. 1899 - 1986), South of the Loop, Woodcut in colors on paper, ca. 1936 9 1/2” x 10 3/4” Signed and titled in pencil.&nbsp;Provenance:&nbsp;Estate of the Artist

Richard Norton Gallery

As the fine arts museum of the University of Chicago, the Smart Museum of Art is a site for rigorous inquiry and exchange that encourages the examination of complex issues through the lens of art objects and artistic practice.&nbsp; Through strong scholarly and community collaborations and a welcoming approach&nbsp;to its exhibitions, collections, publications, research and teaching, and public programs,&nbsp;the Smart Museum plays a dynamic role in expanding artistic canons, rethinking received histories, introducing new perspectives, and engaging diverse communities-locally,&nbsp;nationally, and internationally.&nbsp; Visit <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu" target="_blank">smartmuseum.uchicago.edu</a> for more.&nbsp; Admission to the Smart Museum of Art is always free and open to all.&nbsp; Image: Theaster Gates: Unto Thee, opening reception.&nbsp;Photo by Jason Smith.&nbsp;

Smart Museum of Art

The Art Center Highland Park, a not-for-profit organization, is the North Shore’s home for artistic discovery and creative exploration. Through innovative programs, exhibitions, and classes designed for all levels and ages, The Art Center provides a welcoming space for our diverse communities to experience and participate in the arts. Located in the heart of Highland Park, IL, The Center's vision is to be a cultural destination that inspires and ignites a passion for the arts; providing a forum for self-expression, dialogue, and community engagement. Image: View of artist Nicole Gordon's exhibition in The Art Center's main gallery, photo credit Tom Van Eynde.

The Art Center Highland Park

2026 marks the 25th anniversary of Madron Gallery. Madron’s scholarship driven programming creates exhibitions and publications that champion the work of significant, yet often lesser-known artists in the history of art. With an interest in Jewish and Chicago artists, Madron’s inventory of 19th and 20th century paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, and prints—displayed en suite in our gallery alongside curated exhibitions of both historical and contemporary artists—illuminates artistic connections across decades. ﻿Exhibition essays and publications from the in-house Madron Press are available online. Free parking available. Image: Installation view of "Conversations in Abstraction" at Madron Gallery Fall of 2025.&nbsp;Image courtesy of Madron Gallery.&nbsp;

Madron Gallery

Conceived with the vision to return Epiphany to a place for people to once again congregate, the shuttered historic Church of the Epiphany has been preserved and adapted into an iconic cultural hub ‘For the Good of Art, Entertainment and Events. Thoughtfully designed, the exemplary 42,000 square foot campus boasts three distinct venues and a stunning array of amenities, including eight art galleries, a commercial and catering kitchen, cafe and bar, VIP suite and a collection of artistically appointed outdoor spaces: a charming quarter-acre courtyard, spacious terrace and stunning patio with lounge seating. Epiphany’s diverse and inclusive arts programming serves to unite artists, while bringing the community together at Chicago’s newest cultural destination for art, music, and entertainment. For more information about art exhibitions and events, contact <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="mailto:art@epiphanychi.com" target="_blank">art@epiphanychi.com</a> Photo: Tom McDonald

Epiphany Center for the Arts

Chicago is the pulse of poetry, and visitors are invited to see it in action in the&nbsp;Poetry Foundation’s gallery, where the visual impact of poetry is on full display. The gallery is FREE and open to the public during the opening hours of the Poetry Foundation.&nbsp; Recent artists include Constance Jaeggi, Luftwerk, Kara Walker, Alex Katz, Diana Solís, and Bob Faust. Photo by Field Creatives,&nbsp;courtesy of the Poetry&nbsp;Foundation

Poetry Foundation

The Jackson Junge Gallery is a remarkable contribution to the flourishing arts community of Wicker Park / Bucktown in Chicago. Co-owned by the talented Chicago artist Laura Lee Junge and her husband / partner Chris Jackson, this gallery serves as an exclusive local venue for Junge’s captivating paintings and other exquisite works of art.&nbsp; Before the gallery’s opening in the fall of 2009, Junge’s artwork was only available for limited viewing at her studio, seasonal art fairs, and through distributors outside of Chicago. Since then, the gallery has introduced Chicagoans to a dynamic hometown talent who has gained significant international recognition from art lovers and critics alike. While the spotlight shines on Junge, the gallery also showcases a diverse selection of works by other contemporary artists from Chicago and beyond.&nbsp; Throughout the year, guest artist exhibits are hosted, adding to the variety of art on display. Located on a bustling section of Milwaukee Ave. just north of Division St. and south of North Ave., the Jackson Junge Gallery draws a diverse clientele. From the avid art collector to the casual admirer, visitors delight in the comfortable ambiance and welcoming atmosphere found within its walls.&nbsp; In an effort to make art accessible to a wider audience, the gallery offers exceptional quality giclee reproductions and prints for purchase, alongside original pieces. The use of sophisticated technology ensures the production of superior quality prints. Furthermore, all Junge giclees are created in-house at the Jackson Junge Gallery and are subject to the artist’s personal inspection.&nbsp; The Jackson Junge Gallery also provides a comprehensive range of custom framing services on-site. With the guidance of skilled craftsman and gallery co-owner Chris Jackson, customers can find the perfect mount, protection, and frame for their art, photography, and other treasured possessions. At the Jackson Junge Gallery, our mission is to create a dynamic cultural hub that celebrates the diversity of artistic expression.&nbsp; We believe that art is an essential part of the human experience, and we are committed to bringing the joy and inspiration of the arts to everyone who visits our gallery. Our goal is to provide an all-encompassing experience for our visitors, by combining all the services typically associated with an art gallery in an innovative and immersive way. From showcasing a wide range of contemporary art in various mediums to providing custom framing services, we strive to create a welcoming and engaging environment where visitors can connect with art on a personal level.&nbsp; We are passionate about promoting emerging and established artists, and we take pride in featuring work that pushes the boundaries of traditional art forms. We believe that the arts are an essential part of any community, and we are committed to building lasting relationships with our collectors and artists to promote the growth and development of the arts community in Wicker Park / Bucktown and beyond.&nbsp; At the Jackson Junge Gallery, accessibility is a core value. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience the transformative power of art, regardless of their budget. That’s why we offer a wide range of price points and exceptional Giclee reproductions and prints in addition to original pieces. We see ourselves as a partner in the arts community, working collaboratively with artists to showcase their work and connect them with art enthusiasts and collectors who appreciate their unique vision. When visitors step into the Jackson Junge Gallery, we hope they feel inspired, engaged, and transported by the magic of the arts. Image: Gallery view

Jackson Junge Gallery

Mongerson Gallery deals in 19th and 20th century art including Surrealists Gertrude Abercrombie and Julia Thecla; Regionalists including Thomas Hart Benton, William Ashby McCloy and Robert Hodgell; American Modernism including&nbsp;Georgia O’Keeffe; and Detroit Black Arts Movement artists Charles McGee and Harold Neal. In addition, Mongerson Gallery continues to offer paintings and sculpture from the United States’ westward expansion, including works by Frederic&nbsp;Remington, Ernest Blumenschein, Charles Marion Russell, Thomas Moran, and W. R. Leigh. The gallery is happy to assist private clients by consulting on fine art appraisals, auction services, collections development and management, and authentication. Image: Frederic Remington (1861-1909), The Bronco Buster

Chicago Scenes & Regionalism

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