Elmhurst Art Museum

Neat museum with an added kick… an architectural piece of history! The EAM had several cool facets that we enjoyed. The first was the Mies Van Der Rohe McCormick House that’s actually part of the museum now. A room in the house is home to a neat vintage model car exhibit that my son liked too. The main part of the museum was pretty diverse given the space. There were easily ten artists displayed through as many different types of art. I think the best part of the museum was the Elmhurst Artists Guild room. Major artists tend to be completely overrated or worse (ie. the entire Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art). Local artists usually have far more talent and produce much more meaningful art. The Guild room offers a vast array of art styles through mostly paintings.
Neat place, I’d definitely recommend.

My husband and I visited this museum this afternoon and we both enjoyed the exhibits there. While small (plan to spend no more than an hour to and hour and a half here), this museum had some interesting pieces.
Their temporary exhibit, On the Brink: New Work by Nnenna Okore (at the museum through 5÷3÷15) was really beautiful. Large pieces, constructed of burlap, newspapers, plastic bags and twine are painted and pieced together beautifully. My husband called our favorites, the large hearts, «Bleeding Hearts» and from afar it’s just gorgeous.
My husband had an interesting observation on the Mies van der Rohe McCormick home. The first thing he said was «Hey, it’s built like the Ferris Bueller house» (large glass windows and the car port), but there was no mention of the movie at the museum. I looked it up, and it turns out, the architect of the Ferris Beuller home was a student under Mies ven der Rohe, hence the similarities in construction.
There was also another room for the Elmhurst Artist’s Guild that held works for sale by a local artist, Charlotte Cziperle. Her painting «African Sunset» is gorgeous.

This place is just lovely. We visited this afternoon and saw the Koppe exhibit. The colors, shapes, and images from this artist were stunning. The museum is comprised of an open, airy lobby with all glass walls looking out over a park with gallery space on either end. It connects to Mies van der Rohe’s McCormick House, which is why we wanted to visit. The house is one of only three that the architect created in the United States (one of the other two is the iconic Farnsworth House in Plano, IL).
The whole museum is serene, but not stuffy. We brought my three-​year-​old daughter and felt comfortable with her there. In fact, right now they have a wall where children can color and add their own bit of art to the collections. The whole family had an enjoyable cultural excursion. My only regret is that there wasn’t a book to purchase on the Koppe exhibition or the museum itself. That didn’t detract from the quality of the visit, though. We’ll definitely return.

I can’t really speak for the museum itself but I’m sure that people aren’t traveling from all of the country to visit a museum in Elmhurst. And special events don’t seem to hold that much importance for them either. I contacted the Elmhurst Art museum to inquire about hosting my 2015 wedding. I was looking for something unique and definitely not a banquet hall! I contacted them via both email and phone That was in early May. Here it is six weeks later and I get a response saying how they’d love to host my wedding. Ummmmm… NO. If it had only be an email request I would have let it go. Email is iffy and sometimes messages can inadvertently end up in your spam folder. But you can’t tell me that you didn’t receive either communication. I’m not buying that. So the EAM can kick rocks… I have no intention of patronizing a business that take six weeks to respond to my request to spend 1000’s of dollars with them. I’ve moved on!

I’d call ahead or check out the website before coming here; I managed to visit on a day with not only no installation in the main gallery, but the Artists’ Guild in the middle of taking down their items. (To top it off, the gate allowing access to the gift shop was broken so only the glass-​cased items were available for purchase.) The explanatory video about the Van Der Rohe building was interesting, but you can only see one room; the children’s wing is administrative offices, and you can sneak a peek at the St. Charles kitchen described in the video only by ducking behind a curtain and peeking around stacked tables and chairs.
The one gallery that was open is about 4 rooms; the temporary exhibition there didn’t really speak to me, though it had a few interesting pieces.
Admission is only $ 5 and it’s free on Fridays, but apparently pretty hit and miss.

I must say I was a bit disappointed in this art museum. It looks like a decent size from the outside but there hardly any art inside. I’m just happy we visited on a free day or I’d be really annoyed.

While you’re here check out the room with the works of the Elmhurst artist guild, it changes all the time and really shows off the local talent.

I like it when my ill-​conceived notions are disproved. It’s like a good slap of reality, sometimes we all can use one. When the man said we are going to Elmhurst, my first reaction was «oh no! the dreaded suburbia!» Every time I venture in to the land of suburbia, I find something interesting and worth a repeat visit. Like Super H Mart in Niles, Mitsuwa in Arlington heights, Quench restaurant in Chicago Heights etc. I can now add Elmhurst Art Museum to the list.
Normally when you think of art museum, you think of a city. It is very rare you find a well-​curated museum in suburbia. Even though it is small — compared to many museums I’ve visited — EAM is well kept. The space is beautiful, the collections are excellent, and the gift shop is super cute. Particular mention goes to the «new acquisitions» collection. The museum has acquired art from various contemporary artists for this collection. I think it is an excellent collection. Works by Billy Tokyo and Daniel Kim will make you stop in your tracks and stare. Beverly Kedzior’s piece makes you wonder and reflect on the impact of color.
Then there is Alexis Rose. «Aren’t we comfortable» — a mixed media installation depicting a limbo of imperfection spoke to me as soon as I saw the piece. It makes you think what life COULD look like and what it SHOULD look like. The cushioned zones (sofas) in the imperfect living room are an inadequate illusion to the impossible balance between comfort and protection. I may also be biased with this particular piece because we loaned it to the museum for exhibition. The man and I fell in love with it at first sight and we bought it a few months ago, before the museum decided to exhibit.
Besides the new acquisitions, there are temporary exhibits by Firat Erdim (the Arbor), Glenn Wexler (Stillness in Motion), and Matt Woodward (the Tremendous Alone). I am particularly fond of Matt Woodward’s work — the massive works of graphite on paper are spectacular.
I am glad EAM is bringing art and culture to Elmhurst and surrounding suburbs. As long as you have places like EAM, you don’t have to always trek from the suburbia to the city to satisfy the art enthusiast in you.
Support your local art museum!

So when I moved here I made a list of all the things I wanted to see! Many of them are in the city, but one place that made the list was the Elmhurst Art Museum.
It is not a big museum by any stretch of the imagination, but the art work in there is nice. My two favorite parts were the McCormick House and the Elmhurst Artist Guild Gallery, with pieces for sale.
It is kind of a good compromise, as I dragged some peopel to the Art Institute in Chicago and it is so big and overwellming and after 90 minutes they were bored. Some place like this is great someone who wants to get a little culture in, drag someone along, and you will be out before they have a chance to get bored! Located right near the center of Elmhurst you of course have the other great Elmhurst attractions to take advantage of.
Enjoy!

The Elmhurst Art Museum is just one of the gems located in Wilder Park in Elmhurst, IL. As mentioned earlier, the museum is housed in the McCormick House designed by Mies Van Der Rohe. The center section is warm and flooded with natural light through the numerous windows.
There are three galleries which house changing outside exhibits. A fourth gallery is reserved for showings of members of the Elmhurst Artist Guild. The lastest guild exhibit features country and city scapes painted by a LaGrange husband and wife team. The main gallery exhibit features work by award winning local high school students. They are unique, unusual and impressive.
The gift shop features jewelry and pottery and often items by exhibiting artists. Several years ago there was a visiting exhibit called «AC/​DC TO ZZ TOP: THIRTY YEARS OF ROCK. AND ROLL» by Larry Hulst which featured black and white concert photos. The bonus was that the gift shop was selling 13.5′ x 10 ’ matted copies of the prints for $ 60, signed by Hulst. I bought one of Eric Clapton, one of The Ramones and one of The Blues Brothers for Christmas gifts.
There have been hits and misses over the years, but admission is only $ 7 for adults and is free on Tuesdays. The museum offers art classes for all ages and has guides for children to use while visiting the museum.

Always a fun time. A very cool building and lots of art by local artists. They also work with some local schools to exhibit talented student art, which is really fun. They have lots of kid and adult activities. They are close to downtown, which is great, makes for an easy museum dinner date, especially in nice weather. The staff is very friendly too!

My friend and I wandered into the Elmhurst Art Museum in the early fall, as it is not far from the Elmhurst Metra station. We just wanted to poke our heads in, but one of the staff invited us in for free, as apparently they were in between installations. We did have a look through one of their exhibitions as well as its small gift shop, which both proved to be mildly interesting. Architecture buffs should note that the former Robert H McCormick House (designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) was moved to this current site in Wilder Park, and the museum was sort of built around it. The McCormick House is one of only three Mies-​designed residences that were built in the States (one of which is the Farnsworth House in Plano). The museum was designed by the noted architecture firm of DeStefano + Partners.

I highly recommend this space for a wedding ceremony/​reception if you are looking for something unique in the suburbs. It’s very chic and modern, something you’d find in downtown– but at a very affordable price!!! No need to worry about parking and downtown sales tax… Your guests can view the art gallery during the cocktail hour, which is really neat. The museum also has a cool outdoor patio/​tented area that you can use for your cocktail hour/​dancing at night! The catering manager– Jeff– is also AWESOME to work with. He’s very personable and will work with your budget. You can also bring your own liquor– which saves you lots of money. My fiancé and I LOVED this space very much, but we had to let it go because our guest list kept growing and it was too small for us (we are having over 200 guests now). The max capacity is 150 for seated dinner, I believe, but I’d recommend this space if you are having 110 or less.