Sculptural figures

Some of Chicago’s most beloved public art isn’t public—or Chicago’s. Many of the pieces you see on the street belong to private patrons or nonprofits such as the B.F. Ferguson Monument Fund. Moreover, the official City of Chicago Public Art Collection’s 700-plus works can be hard to spot: Some are in senior centers, some at city agencies and 50 are scattered throughout the Harold Washington Library Center alone. The Department of Cultural Affairs’ free Chicago Public Art Guide doesn’t list every public artwork in Chicago, but it tells you whom to thank (or blame) for most of them. Based on this guide and additional research, we estimate who commissioned what percentage of our municipal treasures:

City of Chicago Public Art Collection 58.25%

State of Illinois, Capital Development Board, Art-in-Architecture Program 29% (including 150 works at the James R. Thompson Center)

CTA Arts in Transit 6.75%

Privately owned 2% (including Marc Chagall’s The Four Seasons, 1974)

B.F. Ferguson Monument Fund 1% (including Lorado Taft’s Fountain of Time, 1922)

U.S. General Services Administration Art-in-Architecture program 1% (including Alexander Calder’s Flamingo, 1974)

Other sources 2%

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