Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Kathleen Collins is best known for her color photography, including landscapes and interiors. Around 1980 she began shooting interior spaces along Chicago’s State Street, which extends for miles across the city from the Gold Coast to the Southside housing projects. The ambitious photo-documentary project highlighted the diversity of lifestyles—from upscale department stores and townhouses to soup kitchens and beauty shops—found in the addresses along one of the best known streets in America.

In the intervening twenty-five years, the images have taken on a historical perspective. Many of the places have changed, and neighborhoods become gentrified. Even the famous Frango mints are no longer made in Chicago, and Marshall Field’s is now Macy’s. Collins, too, has experienced some life changes, leaving photography for an administrative position at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art’s collection includes six prints from her State Street project (Eskenazi Museum of Art 84.26.4–.9).