Checking out Masterpieces at the Art Institute

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the best art museums in the country, and it's right on Michigan Avenue where you can't miss it. The collection runs to nearly 300,000 works across 5,000 years, from Japanese prints and Byzantine art to Impressionist paintings, furniture and a whole floor of modern and contemporary work. If you have time for one museum in Chicago, make it this one.

The main building was put up for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and it sits at 111 S. Michigan Ave. in Grant Park, across the street from the Loop. It isn't on the Museum Campus. That's the Field Museum, Shedd and Adler, a little over a mile south. The two bronze lions out front are by Edward Kemeys and have guarded the steps since 1894. When a Chicago team makes a championship final, the lions usually get dressed in its jersey, and they wear evergreen wreaths at Christmas.

What to see

Start with the paintings everyone knows, then wander. As of this update, the museum's collection search lists all of these on view:

• Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, the dotted park scene Cameron stares down in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's about 10 feet wide, much bigger than the postcards suggest.
• Gustave Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day, the one I'd walk to first. It's about 9 feet wide, so stand back from it.
• A room of Monets, including several of the Stacks of Wheat and Water Lilies, near Van Gogh's The Bedroom and Cézanne's The Basket of Apples.
• Edward Hopper's Nighthawks and Grant Wood's American Gothic, a few rooms apart.
• Mary Cassatt's The Child's Bath.
• Marc Chagall's America Windows, blue stained glass that's another Ferris Bueller stop.

Picasso's The Old Guitarist is the museum's best-known Picasso, but its collection page sometimes lists it as off view, so check before you go. Look up any work you've come for before you go. Every page on artic.edu says whether it's on view and in which gallery, and gallery numbers do change.

Then go downstairs to the Thorne Miniature Rooms. There are 68 of them, European, American and Asian interiors built at 1:12 scale in the 1930s, and they're down on the lower level where a lot of visitors never find them.

You'd never guess it from inside, but part of the museum is a bridge. The galleries that join the original building to the east side span open railroad tracks, and Metra Electric and South Shore trains run underneath.

The Modern Wing

When this page first went up, the Modern Wing was brand new. Renzo Piano designed it, and it opened on May 16, 2009. It was the largest expansion in the museum's history and made the Art Institute the second-largest art museum in the United States after the Met. It holds the 20th- and 21st-century art and the architecture and design collection. The wing faces Millennium Park at Monroe Street and Columbus Drive. Pair it with a walk through Millennium Park and the rest of Grant Park.

Tickets and free days

Adult admission is $32 and seniors pay $26, according to Time Out Chicago. Chicago residents get $12 off and Illinois residents get $5 off. Kids under 14 are always free. The old free Thursday evenings are gone. Illinois residents now get free admission on select dates through the year, which we track on our free museum days page. If you're from out of state and doing several big museums, read our CityPASS vs. Go City comparison before you buy single tickets. Confirm prices on the museum's visit page, since they change.

Hours

The museum opens at 11am. It's open until 5pm on Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and until 8pm on Thursdays. It's closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which catches a lot of people out, so plan around it. Thursday evening is the time I'd pick. Give it at least three hours.

Getting there

The closest L stop is Adams/Wabash, one block west, on the Brown, Green, Orange, Pink and Purple lines. From the Red Line, get off at Monroe, at State Street, and walk two blocks east. Metra Electric trains stop at Millennium Station, at Randolph and Michigan, and at Van Buren Street, both an easy walk. The Museum of Contemporary Photography is half a mile south on Michigan Avenue and free, if you still have energy afterward. For the rest of the city's museums, see our museums guide.

Photo by photine