The Art Institute of Chicago, like many American museums, was formed through gifts from collectors. The museum, located in a huge building with an elegant facade on the east side of Michigan Avenue, opened in the winter of 1893. Since then, the building has been completed and expanded more than 15 times. The collection of European art includes more than 3,500 works dating back to the 12th century. The most valuable and most popular part of the collection are paintings by French impressionists and post-impressionists. The Art Institute of Chicago is considered the second largest and most important art museum in the United States after the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. The art institute began back in 1866, when the Chicago Academy of Design was organized. After surviving the Great Chicago Fire, the academy received its current name in 1882. The museum's collections contain over 260 thousand works of art from all over the world. The most significant collections are considered to be impressionism, post-impressionism and American painting. The museum has collected more than 30 works by Claude Monet. Famous works by Pierre Auguste Renoir, Henri Mathis, Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Edouard Manet and other classics are exhibited. Cover: P. Gauguin. "Arlesian women". Fragment.