Art

From dogs in sweaters offering each other gifts to "Dickensian Christmas" scenes to personalized illustrations of graphic design and avant-garde art, the holiday cards in the Chicago History Museum's collection showcase a broad array of styles, and reveal how similar we are to people of the past.

Miyoko Ito’s life was full of tumult, roiled by an earthquake, internment, health issues, and a bizarre coda, but you might not guess it from her quiet artwork. At a time when Chicago art was focused on figuration, she embraced cool, controlled abstraction.

By blending a lowbrow style and the use of ledger art, Kanza artist Chris Pappan uses his art to undo the erasure of Native peoples' histories and identities.

The Art Institute may be closed right now, but you can take a virtual tour of its vast collection, featuring insight from some of its curators, plus get to see what it was like twenty years ago, in an archival program from WTTW hosted by the late Brian Dennehy.