Some things I liked at the Art Institute of Chicago

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James McNeill Whistler, Trouville (Grey and Green, the Silver Sea), 1865

This desolate Whistler is large and rather more striking than it perhaps appears here...

Monet, Étretat: The Beach and the Falaise d'Amont, 1885

There are a huge number of Monet's- I especially loved this one, with it's jewel-box colouring and wonderful sense of a vista.

 Beauford Delaney, American, 1901–1979, Self-Portrait, 1944

Tarsila do Amaral, City (the street), 1929

Hanns Kralik, Out My Window, 1930

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942

Chaim Soutine, Landscape at Cagnes, c. 1923

This big museum is big- very big. The impressionists- especially Monet and Cezanne, are very well represented. 

But otherwise the works do not come together to tell a coherent story. 

It seemed as if the pieces had been purchased in huge lots and then the curators left to make sense of them, which they did so by hanging furniture and paintings together. Often this is rather unsatisfactory as the furniture gets in the way of the paintings- this is particularly the case in the American section.  

The modern and contemporary sections are much more satisfactory, free of bric-a-brac.

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