The DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, founded in 1985 and affiliated with DePaul University, will close at the end of its fiscal year on June 30. The school, which faces significant financial challenges, announced the closure in an announcement to the community Thursday morning.
In December, it was reported that the school laid off 114 of its 1,493 employees, a cut of more than 7%, due to a sharp drop in international student enrollment. world news networkwhich states the school has sought to cut spending by about $27.4 million. A report released this month by the progressive think tank New America found that more than three dozen colleges, including DePaul, steered low-income students into taking out “massive student loans while offering significant tuition relief to students from wealthier families,” Fox local affiliate reported. Founded in 1898 by the Vincentian Order, this private school offers more than 300 degree-granting programs.
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Other universities have faced public criticism for decisions to close museums or sell off portions of their collections to address financial challenges, including Valparaiso University in Indiana and Albright College in Pennsylvania in recent years.
“It’s a huge loss to continue like this,” said a source in the local museum community who asked not to be named. “It’s already seen as a surprisingly important museum in the ecosystem. It’s small and willing to do things that other museums, even other university museums, don’t do easily.”
The museum is located in the city’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, housed in a building designed by Antunovich Associates and opened in 2011. It has a collection of approximately 4,000 objects, collected since 1972, with a focus on international modern and contemporary art. It features a large roster of artists from the Windy City Monster roster and the Chicago Imagists, including Roger Brown and Christina Ramberg, as well as many other Chicago artists from Candida Alvarez to Daoud Bay to Chris Ware.
The earliest work in the collection is a 16th-century painting madonna and childalthough the collection mainly dates from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The collection includes works from North America, Africa, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
According to the institution’s website, many of the works are politically charged, “rooting the collection in the university’s social justice mission.” The museum’s Latinx Initiative, announced in 2020, aims to promote representation and participation in this community and builds on the existing collection, which includes works by artists such as Lola Álvarez Bravo, Graciela Iturbide, Angel Otero and Diego Rivera.
It’s unclear what will become of the collection, though the school’s announcement did not indicate it would be sold, saying: “In the coming weeks, we will engage in discussions with our university community about how the museum building and its collections can continue to serve as an asset to DePaul, enhance our academic standing, and support the recruitment, training, and development of current and future students.”
The museum is led by director Laura-Caroline de Lara, who has worked at the museum since 2016 and will serve as director since January 2022. Ionit Behar served as curator until moving to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in January, a position she has held since 2023 after serving as assistant curator and associate curator since 2020.
Exhibits on the institution’s website date back to 1997. The final exhibition, opening March 5, features work by artist Barbara Nessim, her first exhibition in Chicago, and Chicago painter Alice Tippit, her first solo museum show. Both were curated by Behar.
