First View of Chicago from the Chicago Skyway is always exciting

The final 3 days of our recent US trip we spent in Chicago. It’s a great a city; always one of the highlights. It never fails to please/absorb/interest. Over the years I’ve just about ‘done’ all the main tourist attractions: ascended the Sears (now, Willis) Tower and the Hancock; shopped on the Magnificent Mile; eaten ribs, burgers, pizza; toured The Robie and other Frank Lloyd Wright houses; taken a trip out to Wright’s and Hemingway’s Oak Park; admired all the treasures at the Art Institute; strained my neck  to see the skyscrapers on the famous Architecture Cruise; cycled down the length of Lake Michigan from Lincoln Park to Grant Park, including forays into Olive Park and Navy Pier and so much more. I think this was our 8th visit and a few days in Chicago always fits in so well with the weeks in the backwoods near a rural Lake Michigan.

Rural Lake Michigan

On this visit we revisited The Art Institute and repeated The Architecture Cruise. We were thrilled to have the company of two special friends who had travelled there all the way by train from Santa Fe in New Mexico. Sarah posts a comment here occasionally.

The Willis Tower from the Chicago River at Sunset

I also walked from our hotel off Michigan Avenue to Oak Beach and on down to Navy Pier and back.

I didn’t walk all 11.5 miles

Oak Street Beach Deserted after Labour Day

Swimmers Ignore the Warning Signs!

Navy Pier from The Trail

Arriving at The Navy Pier

Chicago from The Pier

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous?

At the Art Institute we all visited the major exhibition “America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s“. It’s coming to Royal Academy next year brining with it the famous Grant Wood painting “American Gothic”; quite a coup as I don’t think it has left the US before.

America After The Fall and The Chicago Art Institute

Here is part of the description from the Art Institute website.

“What is American art? That is a question the country’s artists asked and answered in myriad ways during the decade spanning the economic crash of 1929 through America’s entry into World War II. With economic downturn at home and the rising threat of fascism abroad, artists of the time applied their individualized visions of the nation to rethinking modernism. This exhibition brings together 50 works by some of the foremost artists of the era—including Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Grant Wood—to examine the landscape of the United States during the Great Depression and the many avenues artists explored as they sought to forge a new national art and identity.”

Besides this special exhibition we visited various rooms throughout including the beautiful Singer Sargents; Mary Cassatts and I came across some of my favourite Chardins (and here) and Liotards just as we were leaving.

Thank you Sarah and Vince for your wonderful company – we had a great time in Chicago with you!