Visual Arts of Chicago - Early Days: Before The War

Early Days: Before The War

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago was founded in 1879, from the remains of an earlier school founded in 1866 (thus the school predates the museum of the same name). Early students and faculty were conservative and derivative in their tastes, imitating popular European models. Arthur B. Davies, a former SAIC student and one of "the Eight" was considered a disappointment for being a member of a radical group of urban modernists. In 1913, SAIC students held a protest with costumes and bonfires against the Chicago showing of the Armory Show, a collection of the best new modern art; the newspapers described the students' activity as a riot.

Only a year later the African-American realist Archibald J. Motley, graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; he kept his modern, jazz-influenced paintings secret for some years after.

For many years the Art Institute of Chicago regularly held annual exhibits of local artists, but these ended decades ago. Mary Agnes Yerkes, (1886–1989), was an American Impressionist painter and one such exhibitor at AIC from 1912-1915. Born in Oak Park, she studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, where she also taught, and the at the currently named School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is noted for her plein-air painting while camping the American West and its National Parks.