The '''Art Institute of Chicago''', founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest [[art museums]] in the United States and the 14th largest worldwide. It is based in the [[Art Institute of Chicago Building]] in [[Chicago]]'s [[Grant Park (Chicago)|Grant Park]]. Internationally recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, its collection, stewarded by 11 curatorial departments, is encyclopedic, and includes works such as [[Georges Seurat]]'s [[A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte|''A Sunday on La Grande Jatte'']], [[Pablo Picasso]]'s ''[[The Old Guitarist]]'', [[Edward Hopper]]'s ''[[Nighthawks (painting)|Nighthawks]]'', and [[Grant Wood]]'s ''[[American Gothic]]''. Its permanent collection of nearly 300,000 works of art is augmented by more than 30 special exhibitions mounted yearly that illuminate aspects of the collection and present curatorial and scientific research.
As a research institution, the Art Institute also has a conservation and conservation science department, five conservation laboratories, and [[Ryerson & Burnham Libraries|Ryerson and Burnham Libraries]], one of the nation's largest art history and architecture libraries.