The Driehaus Museum presents three exhibitions focusing on portraits from the Gilded Age and late 19th-century Chicago.

Beauty’s Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America looks at the popular revival of formal portraiture in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Beauty’s Legacy features portraits of members of socially prominent families such as Washington, Bonaparte, Livingston, Vanderbilt, and Astor, names that left a lasting impression on the cultural and financial legacies of our nation. 
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Gilded Chicago: Portraits of an Era explores how the resurgence of portraiture manifested itself in Chicago during the Gilded Age. The exhibition includes ten paintings of prominent Chicago citizens that were commissioned during the late 19th and early 20th centuries with familiar last names such as McCormick, Field, Pullman, and Nickerson.
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Treasures from the White City: The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 includes objects drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection, as well as the collection of Richard H. Driehaus and features original works and memorabilia designed for and exhibited at the fair. The exhibition is presented in celebration of the fair’s 125th anniversary. 
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Beauty's Legacy has been organized by the New-York Historical Society.

Gilded Chicago and Treasures from the White City have been organized by The Richard H. Driehaus Museum and are part of Art Design Chicago, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art exploring Chicago’s art and design legacy, with presenting partner The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.