Your first source for biographical information on artists should be the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute. Their entire library catalogue is on-line at http://www.artic.edu.

Your second source is the Chicago Tribune on-line newspaper archives where every newspaper published is available and keyword searches often yield fine results including titles and abstracts. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/advancedsearch.html

After you have exhausted these sources, we will be pleased to help with information on Chicago and Illinois artists.

IHAP has compiled histories of over 1,500 artists who meet the following criteria:
· BORN before 1/1/1900.
· LIVED at least ½ their career in Illinois or closely attached to the state.
· PRIMARILY were painters, not sculptors or printmakers.

IHAP makes no distinction about the style of an artist’s oeuvre; whether they were modernists, impressionists, genre painters, still-life artists, scenic artists, naïve painters, & c.

Our relational database can help the scholar who is seeking to organize and exhibition generate thematic plans.

If for example you are interested in George Bellow’s impact on modernism in Chicago, our database can provide a student list of those artists who studied under him at the Art Institute of Chicago and when. If you are interested in the Illinois artists who studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, our database will provide the answer.

Our library covers all of the art organizations functioning in Illinois since 1859 including articles and exhibition catalogs.

The Illinois Historical Art Project
Box 570 Techny, IL 60082-0570
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