Fall Tours with the Art Institute of Chicago

Lake Claremont Press friend, Barbara Geiger, announces three tours she's giving this fall with the Art Institute of Chicago. These are intended for AIC members, but if you are interested in joining us and are not a member, please get in touch with Michelle Hodalj, the assistant director of member travel, and ask if you can be included (312-499-4131, mhodalj@artic.edu).

All in the Family: The Architecture of Howard Van Doren Shaw and the Sculpture of Sylvia Shaw Judson
2 tours: Saturday, September 6 or Monday September 8
8:45 am to 4:30 pm

Explore the architecture of Howard Van Doren Shaw and the sculpture of his daughter Sylvia Shaw Judson on this daylong tour. Begin with a visit to the Ragdale Foundation, located on the grounds of the Shaw family’s 1897 country estate in Lake Forest. This family’s 1897 country estate hosts more than 200 emerging and established artists of all disciplines each year. Continue to the privately owned, Shaw-designed House of the Four Winds (1908), featuring an interior that combines Arts and Crafts and Moorish influences, a Jens Jensen landscape, and a garden originally designed by Rose Standish Nichols. After lunch at South Gate Café in Shaw-designed Market Square, visit Brushwood in the Edward L. Ryerson Conservation Area, and see one of the original castings of Judson’s now-famous Savannah statue Bird Girl (1936). Then return to Chicago and conclude with a visit to Orlandi Statuary, the firm that produced the original four casts of Bird Girl and the only company licensed to reproduce the statue today.

Inside The Devil in the White City
3 tours: Thursday, September 18; Saturday, September 20; or Thursday, October 23
9 am to 4 pm

Walk in the footsteps of the heroes and villain of The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson’s best-selling story of good and evil at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Drive past the Englewood site of H.H. Holmes’s notorious “murder castle” hotel, travel the route he would have taken from there to the fair, and learn about the fate of his wife and daughter. After lunch at Parrot Cage Restaurant in the South Shore Cultural Center, explore the fair stories of Daniel H. Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted as you walk the exposition grounds—present-day Jackson Park—viewing Olmsted’s lagoons and Wooded Island, the renovated Japanese Gardens, the Charles Atwood-designed Fine Arts Building (now the Museum of Science and Industry), and other remarkable points of interest. Conclude by stopping at sites along the Midway Plaisance to get a deeper sense of the fair’s context and scope.

Art, Architecture, and Landscape: Five Ways
2 tours: Thursday, October 16 or Saturday, October 25
8:45 am to 4 pm

Art, architecture, and landscape often merge into a single intriguing experience. Discover five unique approaches to this experience. The daylong tour begins with a visit to the residents’ private Prairie-style garden at Lake Point Tower, designed in the 1960s by Alfred Caldwell. Continue to the Pilsen studio of Ecole des Beaux Arts-trained landscape painter Didier Nolet, then to the South Side studio of internationally acclaimed contemporary artists, the Zhou Brothers. After lunch at Francesca’s Fiore in Forest Park, visit the studio of objects conservator Andrzej Dajnowski, who specializes in preserving and repairing public sculptures and outdoor monuments, including Lorado Taft’s Fountain of Time. Conclude at the privately owned Avery Coonley House (ca.1908) in Riverside. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Coonley and his wife, this beautiful estate and its exquisite murals have been meticulously restored by the current owners. Jens Jensen planned the grounds and gardens to complement the structure and the site.