Explore the Art Institute of Chicago's collection — artworks, artists, and exhibitions via the ARTIC public API
One of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States, the Art Institute of Chicago holds nearly 300,000 works. Their public API exposes rich data about artworks, artists, and exhibitions — no API key required.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
search_artworks | Full-text search across the entire collection (e.g., "monet water lilies") |
get_artwork | Fetch a detailed record for a single artwork by its ARTIC ID |
get_artist | Biographical info and associated works for an artist by ID |
get_exhibitions | Browse current and past exhibitions |
Look up Grant Wood's American Gothic (artwork ID 6565):
curl -s -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/artic/mcp \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"get_artwork","arguments":{"id":6565}}}'
Returns title, artist, date, medium, dimensions, image URL (via IIIF), description, and provenance.
{
"mcpServers": {
"pipeworx-artic": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "mcp-remote@latest", "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/artic/mcp"]
}
}
}