Marc Chagall (French; b. Byelorussia, present-day Belarus, 1887-1985) first conceived of the idea for the America Windows in 1974 when he visited Chicago for the unveiling of his mosaic in the First National Bank Plaza. At that time, Chagall learned that a gallery in his honor was being planned as part of the Art Institute’s 1970′s expansion program and offered to create the windows for the gallery. After working on the windows’ design, Chagall announced that the theme for the windows would be the American Bicentennial, and, when he learned of Mayor Richard J. Daley’s death in 1976, he decided that the windows would also serve as a memorial to the late mayor.

Chagall designed the America Windows expressly for the Art Institute and created them in collaboration with the French stained-glass artist Charles Marq. Marq fabricated 36 colored glass panels to Chagall’s specifications, and Chagall himself painted his design onto the glass using metallic oxide paints that were permanently fused to the glass through a subsequent heating process. The windows, measuring more than eight feet in height and more than 30 feet in width, are each made up of three parts, each with 12 separate sections. The images on the panels are unmistakably from the hand of Chagall, who infused his landscape of familiar American icons, references to Chicago, and symbols of the fine arts with an ethereality that suggests the creative expansiveness made possible by American freedom and liberty.