A Half Century at the Smart Museum of Art

The Start of the Smart: A Long Time Coming

The Smart Museum of Art, originally the David and Alfred Smart Gallery, opened in 1974, but the idea for having a campus art museum dates back to 1902 when the University’s Department of Archeology became the Department of the History of Art. The department’s only two members, Frank B. Tarbell and George Zug, recognized the need for a dedicated art space on campus.

Concerns about competing with the Art Institute of Chicago delayed progress, and the first official suggestion that such a building should be constructed didn’t come until 1924. University President Ernest D. Burton called for “an Art building for exhibition of a few choice paintings and sculptures, especially of loan collections.” Fundraising began and by 1929, budget was secured for the building’s construction. Then came the Stock Market Crash, forcing donors to withdraw their gifts and the University to abandon its plans.

It wouldn’t be until decades later, in 1963, when Edward A. Maser, then Chairman of the Art Department, revived the idea of having a comprehensive art center. In 1967, the University announced a $1 million gift from the Smart Family Foundation for a fine arts gallery, to be named in memory of David and Alfred Smart, founders of Esquire, Inc. and publishers of Esquire Magazine. This donation laid the groundwork for 50 years of art and inquiry.

A half-century of discovery and exploration

From its inception, the Smart has focused on research and teaching and included community engagement. Founding Director Edward A. Maser committed to offering “countless and infinitely varied possibilities for the study of the visual arts. The discovery and the exploration of those possibilities,” he said, “is the task of the faculty, staff, and students now and in the future” —a vision that continues today.

The Smart is unique from many art museums because of its modest size and deep connection with intellectuals. Christine Mehring, Mary L. Block Professor of Art History and the College, has worked closely with the Smart throughout her career at UChicago. Coming from Harvard and Yale, which have some of the country’s most significant University art museums, Mehring didn’t know what to expect from the Smart, but she grew to love it. “Because it’s smaller,” Mehring said, “because it’s much more nimble, so much more was possible so much faster.”

Faculty like Merhing are involved in many ways, from collecting to curating exhibitions to using art on display to aid in their teaching. The Feitler Center for Academic Inquiry oversees exhibitions that support UChicago courses, many funded through an endowment given by the Mellon Foundation. The Smart continues to develop academic exhibitions with faculty both in the arts and in unexpected fields like chemistry, psychology, mathematics and medicine.

One case study of this program, Smart to the Core, started in 2019 as an exhibition series designed to expand object-centered teaching across all fields and disciplines in the University of Chicago’s celebrated College Core. The series provides works of art chosen specifically to pair with coursework, cultivating conversation and enriching the student experience.

Vanja V. Malloy, the Dana Feitler Director, admires the intellectual culture at UChicago and the Smart’s ability to “break through divisions to bring people together through curiosity.” This interdisciplinary collaboration and willingness to experiment have made the Smart a significant contributor to the art world.

Major Contributions

Over the last 50 years, the Smart’s exhibitions and programs have told different narratives and pushed boundaries.

Prior exhibitions on East Asian art, many of them curated by Prof. Wu Hung, have been revolutionary in the art world. Hung curated his first exhibition at the Smart in 1999—Transience, was groundbreaking in its documentation of major trends in Chinese experimental art. Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, co-curated by Hung and Christopher Phillips in 2004, was the first to comprehensively consider the outpouring of photo-based art that has taken place in China since the mid-1990s. It went on to the Seattle Art Museum, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. These and other groundbreaking East Asian exhibitions “have shaped art history like nothing else the Smart has done,” according to Mehring.

In addition to a wealth of forward thinking exhibitions, the Smart has also made major contributions to the art world through the robust collection of Chicago art built up over five decades under curators Richard Born and Stephanie Smith, among others. Chicago hasn’t always been a front-runner in the art world, though many great artists got their start at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. It wasn’t until the last decade that the art world began to wake up to The Third City, and now there’s immense interest in Chicago’s 20th-Century art. Thanks to Richard Born and Stephanie Smith, the Smart houses a robust collection of that niche.

The Smart’s current exhibition, The 50th: An Anniversary Exhibition (open through March 2, 2025), reconsiders the impact of some of the most significant exhibitions in its history and displays over 180 works from across the breadth and depth of the Museum’s holdings, including paintings, works on paper, sculpture, and archival materials.

Looking ahead

As the Smart steps into its next decade, Director Vanja Malloy aims to build on the museum’s rich legacy while embracing new opportunities and challenges. The museum has always been progressive, being free and open to the public long before it became a trend among academic institutions. This commitment to accessibility will continue to be a cornerstone of the museum’s mission. The museum’s approach will continue to evolve to be less Eurocentric, embracing diverse perspectives and leveraging technology and science to open new doors. The importance of community remains paramount, with a focus on supporting Chicago and South Side artists.

The Smart’s Threshold series holds a space in the lobby to commission a work from a Chicago artist each year. This year, Robert Earl Paige delivered a piece titled Give the Drummer Some! Paige is also working to extend his art out of the Smart’s lobby and across campus. He is collaborating with the University facilities team to design the flowers planted in the spring.

Continued collaboration with departments across the University will play a crucial role in the museum’s future. An upcoming class in organic chemistry will explore the materiality of art while a psychology course will examine the biases we bring to our perceptions of art. The museum will also continue collaborations with other fields to discover innovative art like the TeamLab installation, currently on display in the museum's exhibition, which was brought to the Smart by the Physical Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and uses computer algorithms to create ever-changing, never-repeating art. As Malloy aptly put it, “Every moment in history has its opportunities, and what we’re looking at right now is what is possible with the new mediums that are available to us through technology.”

Ultimately, the Smart envisions a future where art is increasingly interdisciplinary, breaking down traditional boundaries and fostering collaboration across diverse fields. By leaning into the brainpower of the University and the vibrancy of the greater Chicago art community, the museum is poised to remain a significant cultural institution for the next 50 years and beyond.