A Visit to The Art Institute of Chicago

The girls and I recently tagged along on one of Jim’s work trips to Chicago. He loved having the four of us there as he worked. He acted like he didn’t love it, but I know he did.

One of our first stops, naturally, was the Art Institute of Chicago. Dreamy! I had only been there once before (in high school) to see a visiting Degas exhibit, and that was all we got to see. I didn’t know that ALL the amazing things were there!!! Name an artist. Go on and name one. Not DaVinci. Another one. That one had art there!! Thankfully my daughters’ art teacher is incredible and has introduced them to artists I didn’t have the slightest clue about at their ages. Picking a favorite is too overwhelming, even though I forced the girls to do it (sometimes motherhood means being a hypocrite) and here are their picks.

Molly picked Monet’s Water Lily Pond, because duh. Last year this was their main art project at school, so she was pretty familiar with it and pumped to see it in real life. I sang Jessie J’s “Price Tag” the rest of the day. (“It’s not about the Monet, Monet!”)
Adrienne was super excited when she learned the museum was home to The Wave by Katsushika Hokusai. Unfortunately, it turns out it’s almost never on display it because it is so old and so fragile. I’m going to write about it more tomorrow because it really is beautiful. Happily, A is also a giant fan of Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte because ohmygoodness, how can you not be?!

CeCe loved the Degas ballerina statue, (Me too. That ribbon in her hair about does me in, I love it so much.) but somehow, we didn’t get a picture of that one so here are the girls playing air guitar in front of The Old Guitarist by Picasso.

This last one is a pictures Mols took on the sly and later showed to me proclaiming this is what I look like before my coffee in the morning. Funny girl, that one. 

We can’t figure out who painted it though! Do you know? If so, clue me in!