Chicago's parks are the settings for a world-class collection of nearly 300 monuments, sculptures, murals, and more. The Art in Parks Tours program, sponsored by the Chicago Parks Foundation in cooperation with the Chicago Park District, includes three bus tours and five walking tours highlighting the important art and landscape architecture within Chicago’s parks.

Led by Julia Bachrach, who served as historian and preservationist for the Chicago Park District for 28 years, the tours will visit more than a dozen parks and boulevards designed by such landscape luminaries as Frederick Law Olmsted and Jens Jensen. A diverse and extremely significant collection of public art will be explored, ranging from sculpture and monuments by such renowned late 19th century sculptors as Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Lorado Taft to that of iconic late 20th century artists Ellsworth Kelly, Louise Bourgeois, and Richard Hunt.  In addition to visiting dozens of impressive outdoor sculptures, tours will include Progressive Era murals such as the work of eminent painter John Warner Norton and his students at the School of the Art Institute.