In 1903, the Art Institute of Chicago became the first American museum to buy a painting by Claude Monet (1840–1926), beginning a tradition of collecting that has inextricably connected this midwestern city to the French Impressionist master. Tracing...

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) and Frederic Remington (1861-1909) represent a distinct artistic strain of the American mythos: both were celebrated in their day as homegrown, self-taught artists whose work offered a vision of American identity rooted in s...