Want a Picasso? UChicago students borrow original art for their dorms

Students returning to college this fall are busy with the usual activities - getting to know their professors or studying in the library. At the University of Chicago, some students lined up for a different experience: the opportunity to borrow an original work of art from the school’s Smart Museum of Art.

Art to Live With makes its debut

The program Art To Live With began nearly 70 years ago, in 1958. It was the brainchild of the late Joseph R. Shapiro, a prolific art collector in Chicago.

The program's premise was simple: Shapiro thought students would come to appreciate art if they could live with it. So, he gave the University fifty works- mostly by European and American artists- to start a lending program open to all students in campus housing.

It was a big hit from the start, and within four years, the collection grew to more than 500 pieces—including many contemporary works that Shapiro felt would appeal to students.

Despite its popularity, in the late 1980s, the program went dormant.

A new era of art lending

The program was rebooted in 2017, thanks to funds from Greg Wendt, a University of Chicago alumnus and Art to Live With participant. The Smart Museum took over running the program.

The current lending collection, separate from the Smart’s overall holdings, is entirely works on paper. Pieces rotate in and out from year to year. Near the beginning of the fall quarter, the Smart provides an online and in-person preview of the works available from the collection, this year numbering 134 pieces.

Students have about one week to peruse the collection and identify their favorites among the color lithographs by luminaries such as Joan Miró, Marc Chagall and Yves Tanguy, iconic prints by Gordon Parks and Jenny Holzer, and even a couple of Picassos.

Contemporary artists like Takashi Murakami and Robert Indiana are abundant, and Chicago artists, including Nick Cave, Amanda Williams and Karl Wirsum, are well represented.

In previous years, some enthusiastic students would camp out in the small courtyard outside the museum, pitching tents and hanging out, in some cases for two or three days. This year, the University introduced a new policy that states “no University spaces, indoor or outdoor, may be used by anyone for overnight stays or as places to sleep (either in the open or in structures or tents).”

Instead, the Smart implemented a series of check-ins over a two-day long weekend “Art Match,” where students could secure a place in line and demonstrate they were committed to showing up.

Still, early in the morning on the first day of check-ins, a warm and sunny Saturday, it was clear many students had spent the night. Instead of tents, they had improvised beds by dragging outdoor benches together and piling them with pillows and blankets, or hunkered down in chairs with their laptops, books and, in some cases, art supplies and knitting projects to pass the hours.

Lined up along a concrete wall, in clusters or on their own, they looked like attendees at a plein air slumber party.

Rafaela Grieco-Freeman, at the very front of the line, was the first to show up early Friday evening and spent a quiet night out, “nothing too scary.” In her second year of studying mathematics and economics, Grieco-Freeman is a huge art enthusiast and had her eye on a work by one of the old masters, Francisco de Goya. When she first heard about the program as a freshman, her immediate reaction was disbelief.

“I was like no way this is real, like this is just somebody's making something up, I'm getting fake news,” she said. “It’s astonishing to be a part of this and have these like priceless, you know works of art and also like pieces of history…just in a dorm room!”

Vanja Malloy, the Smart’s Director, says there aren’t many programs like this – it is a lot of work. Her hope is that it provides students with a more in-depth view of art and life.

“It could be something you look at as you drink your morning coffee every day and you see it in a different way and maybe you notice things that you didn't before,” says Malloy. “So living with the work allows you to have this depth of experience that you wouldn't if you were just scrolling on your phone.”

Students play the waiting game

As the day wore on and the sun beat down, staff at the Smart Museum set out snacks and drinks. Some students were playing cornhole or hitting a volleyball back and forth.

Chris Wong, a first-year student from Hong Kong studying engineering, said he would have shown up just for the experience— the art was almost secondary. Still, he was eyeing works by Chagall and Miró. He said he wasn’t nervous about having museum-quality art in his dorm because he trusted that the university was “taking all the procedures it needs” to cover any damage, adding that he considered it a “great honor to live with such great works.”

Lauren Payne, who runs Art to Live With, says the Smart expects students “to be good stewards of the work and they take it very seriously.”

“Accidents definitely happen,” Payne says. “We kind of accept that's sort of the nature of what we're doing here. Sometimes it may fall off the student's wall and the frame might get damaged or a hinge might get slipped. But you know, there's never any malicious damage.”

Many of the students are not art history or even humanities majors but are studying science or engineering. Museum director Malloy thinks the program shows students that art can be a part of their college experience regardless of their academic focus.

“It encourages them to look closely at an artwork, to learn more about it, to have a curiosity that then develops throughout their lives," Malloy explains. "So I think it can have a lifelong impact, but it is also something that brings down barriers in a very important way.”

Payne adds that students who participate in Art to Live With do become more involved in the museum. Some do internships and others have joined a committee that helps select new acquisitions for the lending collection, preparing and presenting proposals for consideration.

Getting ready for the big reveal

Sunday morning the students return to collect their art; lining up outside the museum. Lauren Payne advises them on the process and on how to take the art out of the museum.

“When you pull it off the wall, you're going to hold it with two hands,” says Payne. “Don't ever carry the artwork from the top rail. Once you have your artwork off the wall, you will go to a table to sign your loan agreement.”

The museum wraps all the pieces and supplies the students need, including a packet of instructions and Command strips so they can hang the art without damaging it or their dorm walls.

The doors open, the students hesitate, still uncertain, and then rush in.

Isha Mehta was excited to get her first choice, a brightly colored lithograph by pop artist Mel Ramos. A second-year economics and human rights student, she says the program has changed her. "It did make me more interested in learning more about the art and going to the smart museum exhibits and it did encourage me to take a specific art history class last year."

Chris Wong also ended up with a lithograph- one of the Mirós. Wong says he doesn’t know much about art, and made his selection based on instinct.

“I think it's something unspeakable that attracts me to this," he muses. "I do kind of like the forms, the quirkiness of the little monsters, birds, whatever you call them."

The program's potential impact is currently up in the air. Even as the Smart celebrates its 50th anniversary, the funding that brought Art to Live With back will run out after next year. For now, students head home happily clutching an original artwork to hang in their dorm.