Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago

The first Arts and Crafts exhibition mounted at the museum in more than 30 years, Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago will present designs by the movement's most notable practitioners, from William Morris and Charles Robert Ashbee to Gustav Stickley and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Highlighting a wide range of objects, including ceramics, furniture, metalwork, paintings, photographs, and textiles, the exhibition will focus on Chicago collections, featuring works from the Art Institute, the University of Chicago, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Crab Tree Farm, and other private collections.

Although Arts and Crafts has been the subject of recent retrospectives, the Art Institute's exhibition will make a thoughtful contribution to scholarship by exploring the complex influences of Arts and Crafts style, situating its origins and expressions.

Both the exhibition and catalogue will present a thematic history of the movement, culminating in a section on design and collecting in Chicago.

The exhibition will introduce large audiences to some of the city's little seen, previously unpublished yet spectacular, world-class private Chicago collections.

Approximately half of the objects have not been published before and will be presented in a contextual way to make these objects accessible to a broad audience.