Art History Classes in Chicago, IL

Contemporary Art in Chicago is a hands-on introduction to Chicago's vibrant visual art scene. Each week, the class will visit museums and galleries throughout the city. Students will also have the unique opportunity to step behind-the-scenes into artists' studios and collectors' homes, where they can view works in progress, ask questions, and get...

This course explores how the personal nature of an artist's sketchbook can assist in the development of new directions and reveal meaningful ideas to pursue. Students develop sketches, collages, paintings, and notes to be used to create works on larger sheets of paper. Students review the history of artist's sketchbooks and visit the Art Institute...

Meeting in the galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago museum, this course takes advantage of one of the largest and most significant collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, including works by Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh, among others. Through lectures and discussions, students will develop...

Meeting in the galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago museum, this course investigates American art from the Prairie School, Tiffany, the Aesthetic movement, and American Impressionists, among others. Additionally, students will examine Luminist landscapes and the work of modern and contemporary American artists, including, but not limited to:...

This class is an experiment in research based classes at gnarware, bringing in discussion and research to drive the pieces made in class. Participants will contribute their own research and ideas as they work through their projects.  Class Project Objective: Research a specific ancient culture’s iconology by following the path of a specific...

In this seminar we'll explore a constellation of modern and contemporary artists who have re-defined the practice of painting by exploring what it is not. From Tibetian sand mandalas to Joan Miro's burnt canvases to Katharina Grosse's painting/sculptures, we'll learn how artists use ideas of absence, silence and erasure to push the boundaries of painting...

The title of this course, East Meets West, signals a thematic tension that continues to prevail across both political and artistic landscapes between Russia and the West. In this course, we will explore art produced by Russian artists at the turn of the 20th century, and discuss how their artistic production was either parallel or perpendicular to...

An overview of the history of photography as both an art and a science. Class will begin with the birth of the photographic process, in the 1830s, (and its inspiration by the camera obscura) and end with our present day digital photography.  Discussions will include the science and technique behind various photographic processes, and will concentrate...