Art In Public Places | St. Charles, Illinois

Images, Information and Stories
Website and Art Tour

St. Charles is a treasure trove of art – downtown, in the library, parks and park district buildings, schools, businesses – all around the area.  The goal of the Art in Public Places project is to catalog and celebrate St. Charles’ extensive collection of Art in Public Places, and to invite and encourage everyone to see, learn about, and enjoy the collection.

About the Web Site and Art Tour
This web site is set up so that you can search for public art in 4 ways:
Home Page – Chronological order
Medium Page – Artwork media in alphabetical order, such as Mural, Sculpture, etc.
Artist Page – Artist name (for some of the artwork the artist is unidentified, either because their name was not available, and/or because the work was done by a group, such as a class in school)
Location Page – Locations are East, Downtown, and West, and each location has a “Map Number” that corresponds to that location on the Map that appears at the top of the page. In addition, QR codes have been assigned to either a specific piece of public art, or a general location (such as the Library) where a great deal of artwork can be found.

The Art in Public Places project features an Art Tour.  Download the Otocast App, which will direct you to over 25 pieces of art around the city, and will give you an in-depth look at that piece and the artist who created it.

The project to inventory the public art in St. Charles began as an idea of the Public Art Committee of the Downtown St. Charles Partnership.  When that committee disbanded, they asked the SCAC to take on the project.  We spent nearly a year developing the content of this web site.  We will update it as often as new pieces are added, additional information is provided to us, or we learn the Story of a particular piece of art.

We invite you to contact us to ask for or provide more information on any piece of art in this inventory.  Contact the SCAC at 630.443.3794 or info@StCharlesArtsCouncil.org.

PLEASE NOTE: Both the St. Charles Public Library and Community Unit School District 303 have significant public art collections that do NOT appear on this web site.  Their collections are large and rotate in and out of areas that can be accessed by the public.  We will endeavor to keep up to date with their collections, but at any given point in time there may be displayed pieces not shown on this site or pieces on this site that are not available for viewing at those locations.

Funding for the Art in Public Places project was provided by the St Charles Arts Council (a portion of which comes from the City of St. Charles’ Visitors and Cultural Commission grant), Mr. Sterling Ainsworth, and the City of St. Charles’ Economic Development Division.

Art in Public Places Task Force:
Diana Brown – Chair
John Abel – Fine Line Creative Arts Center
Sterling Ainsworth – St Charles Arts Council
Anne Becker – City of St. Charles Visitors and Cultural Commission
Elizabeth Bellaver – St Charles Arts Council
Holly Cabel – St. Charles Park District
Alison Costanza – St. Charles History Museum
Erin Livermore – All Things Art Studio
Matt O’Rourke – City of St. Charles Community/Economic Development
Al Patten – River Corridor Foundation
Jenna Sawicki – Downtown St. Charles Partnership
Mark Smith – Norris Cultural Arts Center
Mary Ann Tilton – St. Charles Public Library Foundation
Ute Westphal – St Charles Arts Council