Art Leagues

Art Leagues are spread throughout suburban Chicago and show up frequently in the Chicago Artists' Archive.  The North Shore Art League, which serves the area where I live, seems to have been a vital place for making, seeing and presenting contemporary art by well known national artists from the 50s to the 70s. You can see by this current Google Maps search that the Art Leagues are alive and well:

Art Leagues in the Chicago area

There is very little history online about Art Leagues, but in general they are non-profit community based arts organizations that support, exhibition and teach visual arts. From what I can tell from the archive, local Leagues were inclusive and programming-oriented. An artist I am reminded of in this context is Eleanor King Hookham, an artist who had a dream to open a contemporary art museum in Elmhurst. She started by founding the Elmhurst Artist's Guild. After many years of community effort, she founded the Elmhurst Art Museum, one of our areas fine regional museums. (story from the Chicago Reader in the Chicago Artists' Archive).

Artists and Art Leagues included in this two week exhibition include:
North Shore Art League: for exhibitions and talks in the 1970s including Ben Mahmoud and Kwak Wai Lau
Oak Park Art League: for a 1980s exhibition of work by Ray Martin
Municipal Art League of Chicago: exhibition by Tom Lynch