Stephen Daiter Gallery

Without being an art critic it’s hard to explain what a great place this is. The photography is superb. I especially like the older (mid-​20^th century) work. The staff are friendly and informative, and the openings tend to attract photojournalists and other engaged and unpretentious people (sometimes with an entourage of family – it’s pretty relaxed, which is refreshing when you’re surrounded by masterpieces).
I preferred the old space on Superior (they’re on Franklin just north of Superior now), but that’s more a matter of personal taste than anything substantive, and actually the current space is more open and easier to navigate in a crowd – it just lacks the sense of being in someone’s airy minimalist livingroom that the old space had. In any case, both the new and the old locations are convenient to Club Lago (Superior and Orleans) if you want to continue the mid-​20^th century frozen-​in-​time theme while grabbing lunch.
Another good thing about the Franklin location is that if you want to do one-​stop photography viewing, Schneider is downstairs, and they are also marvellous. (Schneider tends to show later work, often contemporary, and it has an unexpected but oddly complementary small ceramics collection.)

Out of all galleries I’ve been to in Chicago, the Steven Daiter Gallery was defiantly one of the best ones to visit. The gallery is on a higher level in a building shared with other companies, one of the secretaries of one of these companies in fact lent me the key to the bathroom and was very friendly. The attendants in the Gallery were very informative, one of them was busy running back and fourth to work on something and he also was very helpful in asking about pricing of one of the Art Shay prints. The display was huge, there was a second section with a different photographer’s work showcased. There were shelves with books and things having to do with the artists in the middle of the room, I thought this was a fantastic environment, display, variety and location.