WBEZ | museum

Chicago's National Veterans Art Museum finds new home in Portage Park

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 05:00:00 -0600

The National Veterans Art Museum will be celebrating this Veterans Day in a new home on Chicago’s Northwest Side.

The museum is leaving its South Loop location on Indiana Avenue for a larger space at 4041 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Portage Park.

NVAM Executive Director Levi Moore says the move is an opportunity for the museum to broaden existing exhibits.

“We want to be able to show the diversity of the US. military. Whether that is the growing role of women, the role of Latinos, the roles of Asians, the roles of African-Americans, we really want our museum to look more like Chicago,” he said.

The museum also plans to reach out more to the community through programs like art therapy for children. Moore says kids growing up in violent neighborhoods can have symptoms similar to veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The chance to interact with other community groups also played a role in the museum’s decision. Portage Park is home to several arts organizations including Arts Alive 45 and the Portage Park Theater.

“We won’t be alone. We’re going to have various entities working with us. They’re promoting the area as a destination for arts and cultural arts. It’s actually part of the Chicago cultural plan,” Moore said.

NVAM Communications Director Sarah Eilefson says the museum hopes highway proximity and ample parking will bring in more traffic from tourists and school groups.

The new location will open its doors Nov. 11 with the unveiling of Welcome Home, an exhibit exploring the experiences of veterans across generations.

Museum documents evolution of surgical practices

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:12:00 -0600

How many times have you wanted to peek inside one of the ornate mansions along Lake Shore Drive? Well, there’s one that will give you more than a tour of the architecture. The International Museum of Surgical Science on Lake Shore Drive, just south of North Ave., surveys medical technology and surgical practices through the ages. It also gives a very intimate look at the human body in its current exhibit Our Body: The Universe Within.

Eight Forty-Eight host Alison Cuddy toured the museum with Lynnea Smith, the Director of Education and Events at the Museum.

Chagall windows back on display at Art Institute

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:05:00 -0500

The famous blue stained-glass windows by artist Marc Chagall go back up for public viewing at the Art Institute of Chicago on Monday.

The Art Institute took down the windows five years ago to protect them from vibrations from construction of the Modern Wing.

The head of the Department of European Painting and Sculpture, Douglas Druick, says when they got the windows down, they noticed they needed cleaning. But first, conservators brought the windows back to the lab to make sure they were stable enough to treat. They also did research and consulted experts about how the windows were made.

Druick says visitors are going to notice a big difference.

“What they're going to see is a range of color and a depth of brilliance of color unlike they were able to see for many, many years,” Druick says. “It's like cataracts have been removed from the Chagall windows and we can see them clearly.”

He says many more shades of blue are visible. So are the figures that celebrate religious and cultural freedom in the United States.

The windows were up in a gallery that opened to a courtyard for many years, illuminated by natural light. Druick says that meant visitors couldn’t see much at night or on dim days.

Now they’re up in a new smaller gallery lit by artificial light that looks natural. The windows are framed differently, and that, curators say, combined with the smaller space, means the windows will glow through the room.

Chagall’s a Russian-born artist who spent much of his life in France. Druick describes him as one of the pioneers of modernism, known for his expressive color and his poetic use of folkloric and religious imagery.

In the early 1970s, Chagall came to Chicago to work on his mosaic near Chase Tower. The Art Institute says there was so much enthusiasm for that work, Chagall offered to create the windows for the Art Institute to commemorate the U.S. bicentennial. He dedicated them to Mayor Richard J. Daley for his support of public art.

The stained-glass panels were made famous in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and they remain one of the museum’s most popular attractions. Since they’ve been off display, Druick says visitors ask almost daily when they’ll go back up.

Members get a sneak peek at the windows starting tomorrow. The general public can see them again starting on Monday.