History of the Arts
The University of Chicago has a distinguished history in the creative and performing arts, with three moments of particularly intense activity.
Early Emergence
The first of these moments came in the first few decades after the University’s opening in 1892. In 1898, students initiated the tradition of presenting productions that continues today with University Theater. In 1903, the University inaugurated Mandel Hall with a concert by the ensemble that became the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1909, sculptor Lorado Taft moved into the complex known as Midway Studios, near the planned site of the Reva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts, and in the 1920s he began sharing the space with art students. University faculty were instrumental in the founding of Poetry magazine in 1912 and, in 1915, of The Renaissance Society, which first presented the work of such major artists as Alexander Calder in the United States.
Postwar Artistic Boom
The second great moment in the arts at Chicago occurred from World War II through the mid-1960s. An extraordinary number of the University’s most distinguished arts alumni were students during this period, including composer Philip Glass, director Mike Nichols, and writer Susan Sontag. In 1943, the University of Chicago Presents chamber music series was formed; one of its first performances was by 24-year-old violinist Isaac Stern. In 1955, Richard Stern joined the Department of English Language & Literature as its first faculty member in the area of creative writing, and he facilitated campus visits by Saul Bellow (who later taught at the University for three decades), Bernard Malamud, and others. In 1959, a student improv group called the Compass Players reconstituted itself as The Second City under the direction of cofounder and Chicago alumnus Bernie Sahlins. In 1964, faculty member and renowned composer Ralph Shapey formed the Contemporary Chamber Players, which continues today under the artistic direction of Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Shulamit Ran and a new name, Contempo.
The Arts Flourish Today
Our arts faculty members and lecturers represent the best that contemporary practices have to offer. In addition, we have a flourishing artist-in-residence program and more than two dozen scholars in such related areas as performance studies, contemporary art criticism, and film history. The University has offered a doctorate in music composition since 1933 and in cinema & media studies since 2000, a master of fine arts in visual arts (early 1970s), and a master of arts in the humanities with a creative writing track (2000). It has well-established bachelor’s degree programs in visual arts, music, and art history, to which have been added more recently cinema & media studies (1996) and theater & performance studies (2002). The College’s general education core includes an “dramatic, music, and visual arts” requirement. Taken together, several thousand undergraduates enroll annually in creative and performing arts classes and studio-based courses that combine theory and practice.
Alongside these programs, cocurricular student activities flourish. The number of student organizations dedicated to the arts has grown rapidly in recent years. Almost half of the College’s undergraduates and a large percentage of graduate students participate in over 75 student organizations with interests in music, visual arts, theater, filmmaking, dance, and other forms of performance.
To read more about the unique history of the Performing Arts at the University of Chicago, please visit the Regenstein Library Centennial Catalogues.
