Arts Club of Chicago - Exhibitions, Performances and Lectures

Exhibitions, Performances and Lectures

Until the Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1929, Chicago and The Arts Club in particular was the most receptive exhibitor of modern art in the United States. At that time, no institution in the United States, especially none in Manhattan, would exhibit European modernism. By renting space at the Art Institute of Chicago's Building the Arts Club was able to arrange showings in Chicago's most prestigious museum.

The club has exhibited an impressive number of well-known 20th century visual artists. Many of the century's most controversial artists made their United States or midwest solo exhibition debuts at the club including: Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Jean Dubuffet, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Auguste Rodin, Georges Seurat, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. In addition, many artists have given lectures at the Club, including Martha Graham, Kathleen Battle, Leonard Bernstein, Kenneth Branagh and Robert Altman. Aside from visual artists, the Club also has hosted lectures and performances from such prominent musicians as John Cage, Philip Glass, Ramsey Lewis and Igor Stravinsky, and poets W. H. Auden, Gertrude Stein and William Butler Yeats. Most notable among these exhibitions was Picasso's first United States showing, Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso from March 20 to April 22, 1923, by the Arts Club at its installation at the Art Institute of Chicago. In the 1930s, when Isamu Noguchi was still known as a sculptor, they hosted him. In 1970 when Varujan Boghosian was a timely sculptor known for depicting the legend of orpheus, The Arts Club hosted a showing.