Art Institute added more than 1,000 artworks to its collection in 2025
The Art Institute of Chicago added more than 1,000 artworks to its already-massive collection in 2025, including a rare 17th-century textile from India and a “razor-sharp” German oil portrait by painter and photographer Christian Schad.
The Downtown institution also added works from notable Chicago artists like Amanda Williams and Richard Hunt.
Together, the newly amassed pieces represent the museum’s breadth of focus, said Sarah Kelly Oehler, vice president of curatorial strategy.
“To me, it signals dynamism, it signals excitement, and it signals a future that is really thrilling to be part of,” Oehler said. “We hope that visitors will realize that the museum does evolve consistently in these ways, while there are some works that are more permanently on view, we're also rotating things so much.”
Sarah Kelly Oehler is the vice president of curatorial strategy at the Art Institute. “We hope that visitors will realize that the museum does evolve consistently in these ways, while there are some works that are more permanently on view, we’re also rotating things so much,” she said.
Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
Among last year’s standout acquisitions is the Schad portrait of the 20th-century Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who helped introduce 12-tone musical composition.
Oehler said this piece, which is already on view at the museum, is "tremendously exciting.” While Schad, who helped usher in the avant-garde New Objectivity movement in Germany, is more widely collected and known in Europe, the Art Institute says this is the first of his portraits to enter a U.S. museum.
“It is just this extraordinary painting from the Neue Sachlichkeit, or a German art movement,” Oehler said. “It's just this really crystal clear style to this painting. I think it's really an amazing work.”
Kelly Oehler, vice president of curatorial strategy at the museum, said this Christian Schad portrait of the 20th-century Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer is “tremendously exciting.”
Christian Schad. Portrait of Composer Josef Matthias Hauer, 1927. The Art Institute of Chicago, through prior purchase with funds provided by Mary and Leigh Block in memory of Mrs. Loula Lasker.
Oehler, who also oversees the museum’s Arts of the Americas, also called out the acquisition of a work by Cherokee painter Kay WalkingStick. “The Silence of Glacier” depicts Glacier National Park across two wooden panels overlaid with a Cheyenne beadwork pattern. In the work, WalkingStick “reclaims the Rocky Mountains as Native land and uplifts Indigenous sources of American abstraction,” according to an Art Institute announcement.
“There's a beautiful tension between abstraction and figuration in the painting that I think is lovely,” said Oehler.
Additionally, Oehler said the textile from the Tamil Nadu region of India is “a banner acquisition for the Art Institute.” “This is extraordinarily rare,” Oehler said. “There's only a couple of these that are known. It's magnificent in scale. The condition is amazing.”
Other notable additions last year include a self portrait from Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert, an Ovejo Armchair from Colombian artist Jaime Gutiérrez and a piece from American photographer Francesca Woodman’s notable 1980 “Caryatid” series, which combined elements of photography, sculpture and performance art.
“The Silence of Glacier” depicts Glacier National Park across two wooden panels overlaid with a Cheyenne beadwork pattern.
Kay WalkingStick. The Silence of Glacier, 2013. The Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas Discretionary Fund; Wesley M. Dixon Jr. and Roger and J. Peter McCormick endowment funds; Mrs. Leonard S. Florsheim Jr. Fund; Mr. and Mrs. Frederick G. Wacker Jr. Endowment Fund; Indigenous Americas Purchase Fund, 2025.2.
As is typical, the museum also added new works from some notable hometown artists, including the late sculptor Richard Hunt. “We continue to collect his work,” Oehler said. The museum also added works from visual artist Amanda Williams and Jim Nutt, a founding member of the Chicago Imagists.
“We’re well aware of Chicago's extraordinary history as a center for artistic production, and we want that to be just as important and visible in our galleries as anything else,” Oehler said.
The works, which are a mix of purchases and gifts to the museum, allow the museum to grow its collection of roughly 300,000 items and offer visitors something fresh in the galleries. At any given time, the Art Institute said it has about 10,000 items from its collection on view.
Referencing the institution’s substantial history, “We started by acquiring, in many cases, contemporary art from artists like Claude Monet,” Oehler said. “Those are now highlights of the collection. We want to be able to position the Art Institute of the future in the best possible way.”
Currently, the museum is showcasing the work of architect Bruce Goff. This year, it will open exhibits featuring Henri Matisse’s Jazz portfolio and Mary Cassatt’s breakthrough works that came after the Impressionist movement.
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and culture reporter at WBEZ.