Join the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
Art lending Library and borrow art for free!
One of the first projects Ellen Gates Starr and Jane Addams undertook at Hull-House was a lending library of art reproductions that neighbors could borrow to hang in their homes. They believed that all people should have have access to art and beauty. At Hull-House, the Lending Library was a part of a larger vision to make art the center of a thriving democracy. The Settlement offered art classes for children and adults, Chicago's first public gallery, groundbreaking theater, and more.*
In that tradition, the Hull-House Museum has created the Art Lending Library -- an alternative model of art distribution allows Chicagoans to borrow original pieces of contemporary art for three months. The program is free and open to all!
*Find out all about Hull-House’s innovative take on art at the Hull-House Museum’s exhibit Unfinished Business: Arts Education.
Here is how it works:
1.Come to the museum and choose a piece of art from our collection.
2. A member of our roving band of expert art installers -- the Hull-House Mobile Art Corps -- delivers the art, installs it, and takes a photo to document the art in place.
3. Happiness and satisfaction ensues to everyone involved!
4. After three months, the Hull-House Mobile art Corps will return to de-install the art and return it to Hull-House for others to enjoy.
Where the art comes from
Our initial collection of artworks comes from Community Supported Art (CSA) Chicago, a project of threewalls that is curated by Abigail Satinsky and Shannon Stratton. Much like Community Supported Agriculture, in which shareholders invest in a local farm and receive a monthly payout of fruits and vegetables, CSA Chicago asks shareholders to invest directly in the arts community and receive limited edition contemporary artist projects in return. Satinsky will continue to work with us to grow our collection with other CSA projects throughout the country.
Lending Library Catalog:
Click to download a large catalog
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All views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum or the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Architecture and the Arts.