Fifty years ago University of Chicago students camped out overnight in Ida Noyes Hall for the chance to take home works by artists including Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and René Magritte. The prints and paintings were theirs to display in their rooms and enjoy for the rest of the quarter.
This fall a new generation of students showed equal commitment when the Art to Live With program returned after a three-decade hiatus. By 8 a.m. on the day of Art Match, the courtyard outside the Smart Museum of Art was filled with about 100 students, some of whom had arrived as early as 11 p.m., and strewn with backpacks, sleeping bags, blankets and a touch of Warhol whimsy in the form of a giant stuffed Winnie the Pooh.
The program was founded in 1958 by Dean of Students Harold Haydon, LAB’26, PhB’30, AM’31, and Joseph R. Shapiro, EX’34, an art collector and a cofounder of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Shapiro believed “the best way to become acquainted with art—and to appreciate it—is to live with it.” So he tried to give students the experience he had every day as a collector. By 1962 the number of works available for students to borrow had grown from 50 to 500. (Although the pieces were originally on loan, Shapiro later donated them to the University.) The collection included several works by contemporary Chicago artists that Shapiro hoped would appeal to students’ tastes.