the Americas The Art Institute's African Art and Indian Art of the Americas collections are on display across two galleries in the south end of the Michigan Avenue building. The African collection includes more than 400 works that span the continent, highlighting ceramics, garments, masks, and jewelry. The Amerindian collection includes Native North American art and Mesoamerican and Andean works. From pottery to textiles, the collection brings together a wide array of objects that seek to illustrate the thematic and aesthetic focuses of art spanning the Americas. American Art The Art Institute's American Art collection contains some of the best-known works in the American canon, including Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, Grant Wood's American Gothic, and Mary Cassatt's The Child's Bath. The collection ranges from colonial silver to modern and contemporary paintings. The museum purchased Nighthawks in 1942 for $3,000; its acquisition "launched" the painting into "immense popular recognition". Considered an "icon of American culture", Nighthawks is perhaps Hopper's most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable images in American art. Also well known, American Gothic has been in the museum's collection since 1930 and was only loaned outside of North America for the first time in 2016. Wood's painting depicts what has been called "the most famous couple in the world", a dour, rural-American, father and daughter. It was entered into a contest at the Art Institute in 1930, and although not a favorite of some, it won a medal and was acquired by the museum. Ancient and Byzantine The Art Institute's ancient collection spans nearly 4,000 years of art and history, showcasing Greek, Etruscan, Roman, and Egyptian sculpture, mosaics, pottery, jewelry, glass, and bronze as well as a robust and well-maintained collection of ancient coins. There are around 5,000 works in the collection, offering a comprehensive survey of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean world, beginning with the third millennium B.C. and extending to the Byzantine Empire. The collection also holds the mummy and mummy case of Paankhenamun. Architecture and Design The Department of Architecture and Design holds more than 140,000 works, from models to drawings from the 1870s to the present day. The collection covers landscape architecture, structural engineering, and industrial design, including the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. Asian Art The Art Institute's Asian collection spans nearly 5,000 years, including significant works and objects from China, Korea, Japan,