The Arts Club of Chicago

Founded in 1916, the Arts Club of Chicago has long been committed to innovation in the visual and performing arts. Through the years, important commissions, purchases, and gifts from artists and patrons have formed an impressive collection of modern and contemporary paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, as well as rare examples of Asian and African art.

Edited by Sophia Shaw, granddaughter of the Club’s dynamic past president Rue Winterbotham Shaw (1940-1979), The Arts Club of Chicago: The Collection 1916-1996 documents more than a hundred objects, with in-depth essays on selected individual pieces by museum curators and scholars, a comprehensive chronology of exhibitions, and fascinating histories of the Club’s collecting, programs, and avant-garde patronage. Unique modern masterpieces by Alexander Calder, Natalia Goncharova, Paul Klee, Picasso, and many others are beautifully reproduced in full color, with informative comparative black-and-white illustrations.

Distinguished contributors include Douglas Druick, Neil Harris, Stephen Little, Christa Mayer Thurman, Franz Schulze, Robert Storr, David Travis, and others.