Master Class: Inside the Last American Museum School with SAIC Painting Alumni

SECRIST | BEACH is pleased to announce the exhibition Master Class: Inside the Last American Museum School with SAIC Painting Alumni. Master Class brings together artworks by more than 65 alums and current students who studied in the Painting and Drawing department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) between the years 2000 and 2025. This exhibition, on view from April 19 through June 21, 2025 at SECRIST | BEACH in Chicago, is guest-curated by SAIC President Emerita Elissa Tenny and SAIC professor, chair of SAIC’s Painting and Drawing department, and art historian Lisa Wainwright.

In 1866 a group of 35 artists founded the Chicago Academy of Design. Their mandate was to create a school to study “life” and “antique” drawing and to run a gallery space within the school. Though the original gallery space was lost in the Great Chicago fire of 1871, by 1879, a new school and gallery opened as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In 1882, that name was changed to what we know as the Art Institute of Chicago. Since that time, the School and the Art Institute of Chicago have developed a generative dynamic that has greatly impacted the Chicago scene and the larger art world in myriad ways. 

On the eve of its 160th anniversary, and little known to many, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago is now the only “museum school” in North America. In celebration of this achievement, Master Class dives into the close connection between the museum and the alums of its renowned Painting and Drawing department from the last 25 years. On view in the SECRIST | BEACH space will be an artwork by each of the artists selected. In addition to their own artwork, each artist has been asked to identify an artist and a work of theirs from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Didactics and a video presentation on view in our salon room will guide viewers to those works in the collection.    

Curating this exhibition has reminded us––and will express to viewers––the integral and generative link between the School and the museum, highlighting the long histories of public collections and art-making in Chicago.

What becomes apparent in Master Class is the indelible impact these master artworks have provided for two and a half decades of art students. Contextually, placing these works into close (virtual) proximities allows the viewer to comprehend the role a museum has in the cognitive and technical development of artists. Ultimately, the engaging pairings provide insight into the role of looking, sensorial consciousness, historical mapping, institutional awareness and other more surprising  discoveries. This exhibition serves as a tangible experience for anyone interested in art history and pedagogy.