From the Chicago Academy of Design to The Art Institute of Chicago: How SAIC Was Built Twice

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago began in 1866 as the Chicago Academy of Design, a school founded by artists for artists, and was reorganized and renamed in 1882 as The Art Institute of Chicago to signal a dual mission: teaching art and collecting it. That single decision, driven largely by banker Charles L. Hutchinson, fused a school and a museum into one institution and set the pattern Chicago residents still experience today on Michigan Avenue.

The Genesis: Chicago Academy of Design (1866)

According to the school's own historical timeline, the story starts with a practical impulse: a group of Chicago artists decided to form a school of art in the city, with its own gallery dedicated to the education of its students. That founding principle—artists teaching artists, with a gallery attached to the classroom—was present from day one. The gallery was never an afterthought; it was built into the school's founding logic as a teaching tool.

Just two years later, in 1868, the young academy launched what became its Visiting Artists Program. Widely cited as one of the school's oldest public programs, it brought outside artists, and later designers, scholars, curators and critics, into direct contact with students and the public. The program was later formalized in 1951 through Flora Mayer Witkowsky's endowment of a supporting fund, but its 1868 launch shows how early the institution committed itself to an education enriched by exposure to working practitioners.

From Academy to Institute: The 1882 Re-chartering

The 1866 academy did not remain unchanged for long. A successor organization, the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, was prospering by the early 1880s. It raised $60,000 and purchased land at the corner of Michigan and Van Buren for a permanent home—a building designed by the architectural firm Burnham and Root that now serves as the Chicago Club.

The decisive year was 1882. Charles L. Hutchinson, a banker, was elected president, and the organization adopted a new name chosen to reflect what it had become: The Art Institute of Chicago. Hutchinson's vision was of an institution with a permanent home and a broader mission, and the new name was paired with a new charter that spelled out exactly what the reorganized body would do.

A Dual Identity: School and Museum

The 1882 charter is the clearest statement of the institution's dual identity. It authorized "the founding and maintenance of schools of art and design, the preservation and exhibition of collections of art and the cultivation and extension of the arts of design by any appropriate means." In one sentence, the charter joined two functions that most cities housed separately: a school that trains artists and a museum that preserves and exhibits collections for the public.

This structure is why the school and the museum share a history and a name. Reporting on a recent SAIC anniversary exhibition noted that the school "began with the Chicago Academy of Design, founded by artists in 1866, and has shared history with the Chicago Museum of Art"—the Art Institute's museum—to develop both art museum collections and experimental practical education. The school and the museum grew as two halves of one chartered institution, each feeding the other: students learn beside a major collection, and the museum benefits from an academic community of makers.

Key Milestones in SAIC's History

The sequence below reconciles the institution's shifting names and dates, so readers can see at a glance how the 1866 academy became the modern School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Use it as a quick reference for when each name was adopted and what changed at each step.

Read together, the rows show that the 1882 renaming came less than two decades after the original 1866 founding, and that it was less a rebranding than a consolidation: growth, a permanent building campaign, and Hutchinson's leadership converged to produce a name—the Art Institute—that matched the expanded mission stated in the charter.

Continuing Evolution: Modern Milestones

The dual identity chartered in 1882 has carried the institution into its modern form. The school's timeline highlights ongoing exchange between its two halves: a 2018 exhibition called "Homegrown" at the Art Institute museum showed work by the School's own alumni, and in the same year SAIC was selected to commission and present Dimensions of Citizenship at the US Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale, a project challenging architects and designers to envision what it means to be a citizen today.

Leadership has evolved as well. In 2024, Jiseon Lee Isbara became the first woman of color to lead SAIC as president. The school notes that she is a practicing artist herself, which the institution connects to her firsthand understanding of the power of an art and design education—echoing the founding idea from 1866 that artists should teach and lead artists.

Understanding SAIC's Enduring Legacy

To fully appreciate the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, recognize its foundational dual identity as both a leading art school and a world-class museum, a structure established early in its history. The 1866 founders built a gallery into their school; the 1882 charter made that pairing permanent and explicit. Everything distinctive about the institution flows from that union, formalized when Hutchinson and his colleagues adopted a name that said exactly what the organization was: an institute of art, both educating artists and caring for collections.

The measurable indicator of that legacy remains visible today: the institution's continued operation of both its educational programs and museum exhibitions. As long as the school's alumni show their work in the museum's galleries and students study beside its collections, the arrangement chartered in 1882 is still doing what it promised to do.

Sources

• SAIC began with the Chicago Academy of Design, founded by artists in… — 매일경제
• A History of Influence — SAIC
• School of the Art Institute of Chicago - Wikipedia — EN