Arts Club of Chicago - History

History

The club was founded in 1916 and experienced its first coverage in the Chicago Tribune on March 16, 1916. It had office space in the Fine Arts Building that became too limiting to serve the club's mission. In 1918, the club elected Rue Winterbotham Carpenter to replace Mrs. Robert McGann as president. She moved the club to 610 South Michigan Avenue . The first exhibition included portraits by Whistler, Renoir, Cassatt, August Johns and others. By 1922, the club had outgrown its quarters and sponsored supplementary space at the Art Institute of Chicago until 1927 when the cost of doing so became prohibitive. In 1924, the club moved to the north tower of the Wrigley Building. Among its first exhibitions at the Wrigley building was the first major United States show (seventeen sculptures, nineteen drawings and a painting) of Brancusi. The show was installed by Marcel Duchamp. Rue Carpenter died on December 7, 1931, and Mrs. Charles Goodspeed was elected president in 1932. The club moved to more spacious accommodations at the Wrigley Building in 1936. "Bobsy" Goodspeed served as president until 1940. Then, Rue Winterbotham Carpenter's niece Rue Winterbotham Shaw was elected President. In 1947, the club scaled down its operations for four years after losing its Wrigley Building lease. In 1951, it moved to 109 East Ontario in quarters built to specification that were designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Using Arts Club furnitur, he designed a gallery, dining room, and lecture hall in a pre-existing building. The gallery was built around Constantin Brâncuşi's The Golden Bird and the stairway was renowned for its simplistic elegance. Shaw died in January 1979 and James Phinney Baxter was elected to serve until 1981 when Stanley Freehling was elected. The club struggled financially in the 1980s.