Smart Museum of Art

The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art is a free-admission art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1974, the museum holds a permanent collection of over 17,000 objects spanning modern and contemporary art, Asian art, and European art before 1900. It serves as both a teaching institution for the university and a public cultural resource for the broader community, distinguished by its accessibility, its integration with academic programming, and its holdings of significant works by artists ranging from Frank Lloyd Wright and Francisco de Goya to Kerry James Marshall and Andy Warhol.

The University of Chicago began serious planning for an art museum and permanent collection in the 1960s, distinguishing this effort from the earlier Renaissance Society, founded in 1915 but without a collecting mission. The founding gift came from the Smart Family Foundation in 1967, and construction began in 1971. The museum was named for David A. Smart (1892-1952) and his brother Alfred Smart (1895-1951), Chicago-based publishers of Esquire, Coronet, and Verve, as well as founders of Coronet Films. David Smart was an art collector who owned works by Picasso, Renoir, and Chag, but the founding gift consisted of Esquire stock rather than works from his personal collection. The collection was initially assembled from university departmental holdings and gifts from foundations and individual donors. The museum's founding director was art historian and professor Edward A. Maser, and the institution was originally affiliated with the university's department of art history. It opened in 1974 as the Smart Gallery. In 1983, the museum became a separate university unit with an expanded community mission, including educational outreach in local public schools. It was renamed the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art in 1990 to reflect this broader purpose.

The Smart Museum's collection encompasses more than 17,000 objects across four principal areas: modern art, Asian art, European art before 1900, and contemporary art. The collection is actively used in exhibitions and in courses taught at the University of Chicago, with permanent collection galleries in each area that are renewed annually. The modern art collection features paintings by Paul Delvaux, Arthur Dove, Childe Hassam, Walt Kuhn, Norman Lewis, Roberto Matta, Joan Mitchell, Jean Metzinger, Diego Rivera, and Mark Rothko. The Joel Starrels Jr. Memorial Collection contributes sculpture by Jean Arp, Edgar Degas, Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz, and Auguste Rodin. The Asian collection includes literati scroll paintings from China, Japan, and Korea, Buddhist sculpture, ceramics, ukiyo-e prints, and a significant contemporary Chinese photography collection. The European collection concentrates on art created before 1900, anchored by twenty-one works from the Kress Collection donated at the museum's opening. The contemporary collection emphasizes Chicago artists, including concentrations of Chicago Imagists, Monster Roster members, and self-taught artists, alongside national and international figures.

Among the Smart's most significant individual holdings is the original dining room furniture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Robie House, most of which was transferred to the museum before its 1974 opening, along with some window casings; at that time, the Robie House itself was still being used as university offices. The first abstract expressionist work in the collection and one of its earliest donations was Joan Mitchell's Untitled (1961), given in 1968. The Kress Collection donation at opening included paintings by Cecco Bravo, Luca Cambiaso, Donato Creti, Pordenone, Girolamo da Santa Croce, Jan Steen, and Paolo Veronese. Other notable European works include Goya's The Disasters of War and paintings by Gustave Caillebotte, Louis Dupré, and Jean-Baptiste Regnault. The contemporary holdings include work by John Chamberlain, Antony Gormley, Robert Irwin, Sylvia Sleigh, Andy Warhol, and Claire Zeisler. The museum also maintains an extensive archive of artwork, sketchbooks, letters, tools, original woodblocks, and personal material related to H. C. Westermann, much of it donated by his wife Joanna Beall Westermann and his sister Martha Renner. Contemporary Chicago and American artists represented include Dawoud Bey, Nick Cave, Theaster Gates, Richard Hunt, Laura Letinsky, Kerry James Marshall, Dan Peterman, and Tony Tasset.

The Smart Museum and the adjacent Cochrane-Woods Art Center, which houses classrooms and offices for the University of Chicago's department of art history, were designed by Chicago-born architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. The unadorned modernist buildings are clad in Indiana limestone and linked by covered walkways; they face a common outdoor sculpture garden. The design has been described as deceptively sophisticated in its simplicity, relating to the Gothic architecture and quadrangles elsewhere on campus. The museum lobby features a vaulted ceiling with a north-facing clerestory window. At the 1971 groundbreaking, University of Chicago president Edward H. Levi stated that the design was intended to display rather than distract from the works exhibited, and to enhance communication among scholars. Levi also noted that the project was originally conceived on a much larger scale; Barnes had prepared unexecuted plans for music, theater, and library facilities extending to the north. A 1999 renovation reconfigured and expanded the public gallery spaces within the building's existing footprint.

The Smart Museum of Art is located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. It is wholly part of the university and operates as a public museum with free general admission and no special charge for exhibitions. The museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Its exhibitions and operations are funded through university support, foundation grants, and individual contributions. Governance includes a board of governors, a membership program, and faculty and student advisory committees. The museum's public role encompasses educational outreach, including activities in local public schools, reflecting its expanded mission since becoming a separate university unit in 1983.