Conversation: Telling the Stories of Ancient Egyptian Art

Why It Matters

The catalog expands global access to primary collection scholarship, strengthens the Art Institute’s role as a center for Egyptology, and modernizes how museums publish and interpret ancient collections for research, education, and public engagement.

Summary

The Art Institute of Chicago has published an open-access digital catalog, "Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago," its first comprehensive catalog of the collection in more than a century. The project, led by associate curator Ashley Arico and publishing VP Katie Reilly with a major introductory essay by Egyptologist Emily Teeter, chronicles the museum’s century-long collecting history—from an 1890 gift by Amelia B. Edwards to large acquisitions funded by Charles L. Hutchinson’s 1892 Egypt trip—and includes high-resolution archival images and detailed object entries. The digital format enabled broader storytelling about the collection’s development and presentation, and reflects a strategic shift in the museum’s digital publishing program. Speakers emphasized the collaborative, cross-departmental effort required to produce a scholarly yet publicly accessible resource.

Original Description

The Art Institute’s collection of ancient Egyptian art spans more than 3,000 years of artistic achievement in the Nile Valley—everything from personal adornments to stone and metal statues. With so many variations in these objects—in media, time period, and use—how does one begin to tell the stories of this collection, much less build a publication around it?

Hear from Ashley Arico, associate curator of ancient Egyptian art, and Katie Reilly, associate vice president of publishing, as they dive into what it took to craft the digital catalogue that traces the trajectory of ancient Egyptian art through the Art Institute’s collection.

Explore publications at the Art Institute of Chicago at www.artic.edu/publications.