Chicago’s DePaul Art Museum to Close
19Feb. 28, 2026
TheDePaul Art Museum, the contemporary art museum of DePaul University in Chicago, will shutter permanently on June 30. The contemporary art institution’s closure comes as the school struggles with budget cuts forced by a steep decline in international graduate enrollment, a rise in demand for financial aid, and an increase in the cost of benefits. Chicago-based PBS affiliateWTTW Newsreports that the university laid off nearly 8 percent of its staff in December as it sought to cut $27.4 million in spending.
Founded in 1985, the De Paul Art Museum opened in its current home in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in 2011, where it welcomed visitors free of charge. It showcased the work of more than six hundred artists over its fifteen-year tenure there, focusing on underrepresented artists hailing mainly from Chicago. Administrators and museum staff will work together to determine the fate of its 4,000-piece collection, which it began assembling in 1972. Among its holdings are works by Chicago Imagists such as Roger Brown and Christina Ramberg; those by members of the city’s so-called Monster Roster, including Dominick Di Meo and Leon Golub; and works by Latinx artists such as Jonathan Castillo, Gala Porras-Kim, Joiri Minaya, and Diana Solís.
University president Robert Manuel in an announcement assured staff and students that the building housing the museum would not be sold or sit vacant but would be repurposed in another way that served students. “While this marks the end of an important chapter, it also creates an opportunity to reimagine how we advance the arts at DePaul,” wrote Manuel. “Our university’s strength in the arts remains deep and distinctive — spanning music, theatre, fine art, design, film and television, creative writing and more.”
The museum’s final exhibitions are set to open March 5.