08/12/2026
The Jackson Scholars boarded the Amtrak train from Hastings / Omaha to Chicago the first week of August to explore the art culture of the Windy City. We navigated the city with our CTA passes in hand and squeezed as much art as we could into the week!
We spent our first day visiting the beautiful University of Chicago campus for some urban sketching before we took a gander around the Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House right next door. We then jumped from south Chicago to the westside suburb of Oak Park for a formal tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s first Chicago home and studio. We capped off the first day with an architectural riverboat tour, getting to witness the Chicago skyline transition from day to dusk to dark.
Day 2 promised rain and we were able to rearrange our agenda a bit so that we’d be indoors at the Museum of Contemporary Art during the rain. Our dry hours were spent exploring the River North Gallery District and a few west side galleries. The only plan thwarted by the rain was the Navy Pier… but we did see a bit of it during our riverboat tour.
The third and final day was by far the most immersive. We got up a little earlier to visit Cloudgate (aka “The Bean”) at Millennium Park. From there, we were right on time for the opening of the Chicago Cultural Center with special art exhibits and stained glass domes that were absolutely stunning. We briefly stopped by the Fine Arts Building before spending the majority of our day at the Art Institute of Chicago. I think everyone would agree that even 5 hours was not nearly enough time to see everything. We were able to visit a special exhibition of Willem de Kooning, which was immense and spanned his entire career. Our last event was a panel discussion at the Driehaus Museum called “Ink and Outrage” where we got insights into the world of satirical art and social commentary cartooning with artists from The Onion and The New Yorker.
We were all pretty beat from more walking and navigating than we’re used to, but we had a great time. We tried Chicago style pizza and the consensus was that it is “just okay” while the tiramisu at Quartino Ristorante was probably the best we’d ever had.
This was a great way to head into year 2 for the Jackson Scholars!
