Powell’s Books Chicago/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Part of the Art in Chicago feature, a guide to Chicago art institutions, galleries and movements for collectors, curators and the curious. 

Famed art-book publisher Rizzoli once had a retail store in Water Tower Place. Did you ever visit? It welcomed book-lovers for twenty-five years before closing in 2001. If you’re very lucky, you had the chance to shop at Prairie Avenue Bookshop, at one time the world’s largest architectural bookstore. Their shop on South Wabash, which closed in 2009, was as beautiful as the volumes they carried. And maybe you remember a shorter-lived place, Golden Age, first in Pilsen and then in the West Loop, where artists Marco Kane Braunschweiler and Martine Syms put a spotlight on books by and about contemporary artists. It closed in 2011. Those were the good old days.

But as Patti Smith often says: you live in the present. Your golden age is now.

Accepting this premise, I decided to take a walk to see where I might find art books in Chicago today. I began with a broad definition of “art book,” including everything from coffee-table books to graphic novels, and anything fitting the categories of art, architecture or design. Then I mapped out a trail anchored by two obvious stops—the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art—but also allowing for discoveries along the way. The result is below. Follow this walk yourself—or perhaps pick a different part of town and compose your own.

Start the walk near the corner of North Avenue and North Clark Street. Multiple CTA bus lines intersect at that point, which makes it a convenient place to begin.

Chicago History Museum/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Chicago History Museum (1601 North Clark)

You wouldn’t necessarily think a gift shop in a history museum would stock books on art. But think of the Chicago History Museum’s exhibition history—say, the survey of Vivian Maier’s color photography a few years ago, or the recent show on protest art—and maybe it’s not so surprising. Alongside a range of historical works, the museum shop holds a small selection of art-related titles, touching primarily on architecture, fashion and photography. Many of the books on cultural history in Chicago—gender-based, ethnic, religious—also address art in those communities. If your interest is in Chicago-related topics or figures, this is a worthwhile starting point.

The next stop focuses on architecture. As you leave the history museum, head east on North Avenue and turn right on North State Parkway. Walk down one block to: 

Graham Foundation/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

The Graham Foundation (4 West Burton Place)

Located in a Prairie-style mansion on the northwest corner of Burton and North State, the Graham Foundation—formally, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts—describes its mission as fostering “the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture and society.” The foundation’s shop is a rare architecture-focused bookstore in Chicago, offering a range of architect monographs, studies of architectural and cultural movements, exhibition catalogues and works of theory and criticism. Its eclectic range extends into cultural history. You can also find recent issues of periodicals like a+u (Architecture and Urbanism) and Harvard Design Magazine. As in other art-focused shops, the organization of books is eccentric—but the staff is friendly and informed, so advise them of your interests and let them be your guide.

Continue down North State to Division and turn right. Continue west on Division to North Dearborn, and take a left. Four blocks south on Dearborn you reach:

The Newberry Library/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

The Newberry Library (60 West Walton)

On the northwest corner of North Dearborn and West Walton is the Newberry Library. The imposing 1893 Henry Ives Cobb edifice hosts one of the world’s largest private humanities libraries. The library’s core research areas are determined by the strengths of their holdings, which include the American West and Midwest, genealogy, and Medieval and Renaissance studies. Fine arts, architecture and design within those areas are also strengths. The Newberry Bookshop, located off the library’s main lobby, reflects that, with titles like “Fifty Early Medieval Finds,” Edward Gorey’s “Amphigorey” books and “Chicago Avant Garde: Five Women Ahead of Their Time,” the catalogue from the library’s 2021 exhibition. Because the “History of the Book” is also a core area, book arts are also featured in the shop, with volumes on bookbinding, calligraphy, typography and illustration across the ages.

When you exit the library, turn left and head east on Walton until you get to North Rush Street. Turn right on Rush and continue down to East Pearson Street, where you take a left. Continue down Pearson until you reach the Water Tower:

Loyola University Museum of Art/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) (820 North Michigan)

LUMA does not have a bookshop, so you might ask why it’s on the list. Here’s why: museums that have exhibitions, like LUMA does, also publish catalogues for those exhibitions. If the museum doesn’t have a shop, it likely still has catalogues for sale or sometimes for free. I think it’s kind of a golden age for museum catalogues, in fact. I’m often struck by the quality of the scholarship and the care that goes into them. So here’s a reminder that your local university-based museum (in addition to LUMA, think the Smart Museum, the Block Museum and the DePaul Art Museum) might not have a shop, but still has catalogues. Stop by and ask, or check the website. Also, as I’ve discovered, many museums and galleries that don’t have physical shops do have online stores (think the Renaissance Society, the Arts Club of Chicago and Wrightwood 659).

Leaving LUMA, continue east on Pearson toward the Museum of Contemporary Art. When you reach the MCA, take a left on Mies van der Rohe Street and a right on Chestnut for a quick visit to: 

Space 519/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Space 519 (200 East Chestnut)

Billed as a “small department store,” Space 519 has a little bit of everything: clothing, accessories, decorative objects, and yes, a small assortment of books. They tend toward fashion, but not only fashion. On my last visit, I spotted “Studio Ashby: Home Art Soul,” by British designer Sophie Ashby and “Peter Moore: Sneaker Legend,” the story of the designer of the Air Jordan and other classics, but also “Joseph Albers in Mexico” from the Guggenheim show and, most delightfully, “Seeing Things: The Small Wonders of the World According to Writers, Artists and Others.”

Head back west on Chestnut and take a left at Mies van der Rohe Way until you reach the corner of Mies and East Chicago Avenue, where you can enter:

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (220 East Chicago)

At the southwest corner of the museum plaza is the bookstore entrance. Or you can climb the stairs to the main desk and turn right. On the second level of the museum shop, is a true art bookstore. A selection from Princeton University Press’ “ism” series: “Ono-isms,” “Haring-isms,” “Minter-isms.” “A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965.” “Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence,” from the recent MCA show of the same name. Artist monographs predominate, along with historical and genre surveys, but you’ll find criticism and theory too. One of the better selections of art texts in the city.

Leaving MCA, head east on Chicago and take a left on North Michigan Avenue. Continue south on Michigan until you reach East Erie Street, and take a right. Continue on Erie until you reach:

Driehaus Museum/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Driehaus Museum (50 East Erie)

As old mansions go, the Richard H. Driehaus Museum is a pretty grand one. The museum, which focuses on the art of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, actually occupies two historic buildings: the 1883 Nickerson Mansion and the 1926 Murphy Auditorium. To visit the museum store, you use the auditorium entrance. An attendant inside led me to an elevator that takes you to the third floor, where the store is located. (I felt for a moment like one of the six suspects in the game of Clue.) The beauty of the rooms the store is located in—one had been Mrs. Nickerson’s sewing room—makes you forgive the fact that the book inventory is somewhat limited. Early twentieth-century Chicago architecture, Tiffany stained glass, and other facets of Gilded Age design are featured. Also in stock are catalogues from past Driehaus exhibitions, including recent shows featuring contemporary artists, which were remarkably effective in casting a new light on both the art and its setting. This institutional effort at outreach is reflected in the attitude of store staff, who seem delighted to engage with visitors.

When you leave the museum, return to Michigan Avenue, where you will walk (or bus) south to the corner of Michigan and East Wacker Drive, where you will find:

Chicago Architecture Center/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Chicago Architecture Center (111 East Wacker)

The ground-floor CAC Design Store has one of the best architecture selections in the city within the limited space they have available. The focus is more on coverage than on up-to-dateness. In other words, you’ll find something on most well-known architects, important books on architecture in Chicago, and well-reviewed books from the last few years, like Deb Chachra’s “How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World.” You’ll also find a range of architecture and design books for kids. But you likely won’t find Dezeen’s top ten architecture books of 2025 or whatever pops up this week on the Weekly Dose of Architecture Books newsletter. (RIP Prairie Avenue Bookshop.) But definitely thankful for what you can find here.

Continue down Michigan Avenue south, until you reach the Chicago Cultural Center. Enter at the Randolph Street entrance and ask the friendly person at the information desk to direct you to: 

Buddy/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Buddy (inside the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington)

I haven’t mentioned small press, local imprints, zines or artist’s books yet, all of which have a major role to play in art and design both locally and globally. We’re fortunate to have Buddy, an initiative of the Bridgeport-based Public Media institute, to bring many of these items together at a central location in the city. Buddy is more than a bookstore, of course—it’s a gallery for prints, art objects, jewelry, textiles, toys and many other items produced by Chicago makers. Among the things I spotted were a table full of titles from Soberscove, that great local art and culture press, including “Where the Future Came From,” a collection of essays about the history of women-led, artist-run spaces in Chicago. Also some good things from alt-comics press 2dcloud, and many, many other books, journals and magazines published in Chicago. A lot of this stuff is on Buddy’s website, but you really have to browse in person and let it wash over you.

When you exit Buddy, take a right and you will find yourself at the Washington Street lobby of the Cultural Center. Exit here and return to Michigan Avenue, where you will take a right and follow Michigan south to:

Art Institute of Chicago/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Art Institute of Chicago (111 South Michigan)

The book selection at the Museum Shop of the Art Institute meets expectations in some ways and in other ways confounds them too. On the side of “meets expectations,” I found a large selection of expensive monographs on canonical artists from all eras. A rack of affordable Taschen Basics that casual museumgoers can take home to learn the foundational facts about an artist, movement or period. A wall of the Art Institute’s own publications, from museum guides to highlight volumes catalogues from exhibitions. A long aisle of children’s titles. But I was also pleasantly surprised by books related to the home—exterior and interior design—and also broader issues of housing affordability and equity. A shelf of instructional books for adults, from portrait painting to calligraphy to comics, also delighted me. It struck me that these are really an effort to bring something back from the museum into ordinary life—not an easy thing for an august and often intimidating institution like the Art Institute to do. If you don’t find what you’re looking for at the Museum Shop, make sure you check out the Modern Shop located inside the Millennium Park entrance to the museum. Its selection has a modern and contemporary slant.

This is the end of the walk, but here are two other mini-walks you may enjoy, one south and one west: 

The Seminary Co-op/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Hyde Park:

Powell’s Books Chicago (1501 East 57th) and The Seminary Co-op (5751 South Woodlawn)

Powell’s has arguably the best selection of art, architecture and design in the city. Typography alone occupies an entire bookcase. I barely got past the bookcase facing the entranceway (important volumes on Lionel Feininger, Kara Walker, Jacob Lawrence, Tracey Emin and Japanese and Chinese painting) when I found the locked glass-fronted cabinet (Turrell, more Walker, Corbusier, Fluxus, Niki de St. Phalle). And I hadn’t even entered the art section yet. When I thought I’d found all of it, I walked around to the next aisle and there was more art. Because it focuses on used and rare books, it doesn’t meet my need for the latest releases, but that’s not what it’s about. And what it is about is very, very good.

Inga Bookshop/Photo: Joseph Cothrel

Pilsen:

Inga Bookshop (1740 West 18th) and Grunts Rare Books (Midland Warehouse, 1500 South Western, Suite #403) Editor’s note: Grunts Rare Books closed in April 2026.

Inga and Grunts are complementary in a way as well. Both are small, specialty shops. Inga focuses on new books, while Grunts, which is also an art gallery, focuses on used and rare titles.

Inga seems to serve a particular kind of reader—broadly interested in art, culture and theory, interested in both popular and scholarly books, and perhaps looking for something you don’t encounter at other shops. My purchases—McKenzie Wark’s “Leaving the Twentieth Century,” a history of the Situationist movement, and “Moments of Meaning-Making,” a new memoir-ish essay collection by Dutch theorist and video artist Mieke Bal—might give you an idea the kinds of books Inga stocks and sells. Although I also want to return for that Sixty Inches from Center title that looked terrific.

Grunts, which opened in late 2024, is another terrific find. The gallery has received national attention for their most recent show, “Sympathy Ribbon,” a two-person exhibition featuring the work of Margaret Crowley and Madeline Gallucci, and the same eye for quality and singularity is evident in the books and other publications they collect and sell. I loved some of the rare Chicago artifacts it held, like the program from the 1981 Navy Pier art fair and the catalogue from the 1963 Art Institute show, “Chicago Collectors.” Check out some of the offerings on their website, which also features a free PDF library of older art books and catalogues. (Note: Grunts closed at the end of March.)

The Co-op, by contrast, defines what I think the art section of a general interest new-book bookstore should look like. Well-organized sections, a broad range of monographic, historical and critical works, a good graphic novel selection (Jason Lutes’ epic “Berlin” prominently displayed), and an excellent section on film. The offering reflects both the popular and the scholarly interests of their clientele. It might save you a few minutes to know that almost all of the art, architecture and design titles are concentrated here, rather than in the excellent sister bookstop 57th Street Books, just down the way.