Chicago art lovers have just a few days left to catch one of the Art Institute of Chicago’s most quietly fascinating shows of the season. Self, Made: Fourteen Modern Artists from the Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Collection closes on November 9, 2026, at the museum at 111 South Michigan Avenue.
The exhibition brings together nearly 40 works across photography, drawing, painting and sculpture, drawn exclusively from the Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Collection. Together they tell stories of self-invention: fourteen modern artists who fashioned their own images, personas and mythologies, deciding for themselves who they were going to be and then making the art to prove it.
It is a fitting theme for a city built on reinvention, and a generous one for visitors: in a single visit you can move from intimate drawings to bold photographs and sculptures, watching each artist negotiate the same delicious question, how much of an identity is found, and how much is made?
If you have been meaning to go, consider this your friendly nudge. The galleries are at their autumn best, Millennium Park is right outside the Modern Wing doors, and after November 9 this particular gathering of self-made moderns heads back to the collection vaults.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
