MUSEUM COLLECTIONS OFFER FINEST IN ART, SCIENCE.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

CHICAGO - The long, grim face peers fixedly out of the painting, as if in mild challenge. The pitchfork is gripped in the right hand, a man at ease with his profession. The gaze of the young woman alongside is averted, a daughter uncomfortable with her caller's first meeting with her father.

It's probably fitting that Grant Wood's famous ``American Gothic'' is hanging here, in the Art Institute of Chicago. Though inspired by a scene in Eldon, Iowa, it could have been painted anywhere in the vast farmland of central Illinois. Alternately described as a satire of American rural life or an affirmation of its simple virtues, this has been its home since the year it was painted, 1930, when Wood won a $300 prize for it.

But lest you conclude an art museum in a no-nonsense city like Chicago is devoted primarily to such regional expression, you've got a pleasant surprise in store. The Art Institute of Chicago, established more than a century ago, has a varied and magnificent collection of art, from paintings and sculpture to architecture, textiles and decorative arts.

In fact, the curators are evidently so sensitive to the whole Midwest-hick thing that photographs of 26 artworks were included in a visitor brochure ... and ``American Gothic'' didn't make the cut.

The art institute, housed in a classical Renaissance building with bronze lions flanking the entry staircase off South Michigan Avenue, is one of 23 notable museums in a city with a strong and deep cultural heritage.

Other popular stops for visitors include the Field Museum of Natural History, nearby in Grant Park, and the Museum of Science and Industry, south of downtown in Hyde Park.

The Art Institute of Chicago received twin jolts of benevolence in the 1920s when wealthy patrons Helen Birch Bartlett and Bertha Honore Palmer donated dozens of important Impressionist and post-Impressionist works to the collection. Bartlett gave the museum what would become its signature painting, Georges Seurat's ``A Sunday on La Grande Jatte'' (a photo of that one is included in the brochure).

There is also great diversity in the collection - often reflected in a single gallery. In one room you'll find the work of Diego Rivera sharing space with that of Ukrainian expatriate Todros Geller and that of Doris Lee, whose ``Thanksgiving'' resembles an old Saturday Evening Post cover.

Another American favorite is Edward Hopper's ``Nighthawks,'' a glum representation of a late-night New York coffee shop, featuring characters lost in their private worlds.

And, on the lower level, don't miss an outstanding photography collection, as well as James Earle Fraser's ``The End of the Trail'' sculpture.

Architecture buffs will appreciate the skylit, second-level mezzanine, where a display features elaborate terra cotta and iron-filigree grilles that have survived from some of Chicago's late-19th-century buildings.

Elsewhere in Chicago:

Field Museum of Natural History: Perhaps Chicago's most famous museum, it was endowed by department-store magnate Marshall Field and is housed in a Georgian marble beast of a building at the south end of Grant Park.

``Sue'' is its most famous resident - the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever discovered (she was unearthed in South Dakota in 1990). The skull is so heavy the reconstructed skeleton can't support it, and it's displayed in a separate exhibit - where you can even view a CT scan of the thing, a method scientists have used to gain a better sense of the dinosaur's brain, sense of smell, vision, etc.

The Field Museum also has an extensive collection of American Indian artifacts and art - not only of the tribes that once flourished on the prairie of the Upper Midwest but of the Northwest Coast Indians. The exhibits are imaginatively displayed and profoundly informative.

In this museum, it's fun to explore without a specific plan - to just wander into a wing and lose yourself in the recesses of an exhibit. We did this in an area devoted to Pacific Islanders and were fascinated by the scope of the display.

Museum of Science and Industry: This facility in Hyde Park (to the south of downtown) is a whirring, buzzing, clattering testament to the modern museum fascination with all things interactive. Especially popular with kids - and in most cases specifically geared to them - its exhibits feature countless buttons, cranks, levers, touch screens, video screens. Science comes alive through it all.

Descend into a mock-up of an Illinois coal mine. Walk through a 16-foot- tall human heart, hearing (and feeling!) the thump of its steady pulse. Climb into a German U-boat, captured during World War II. Gaze across a scale model of the Chicago skyline at a model-train exhibit.

Or step into an F-14 fighter simulator. In the line for this exhibit, parents could be heard talking their frightened children into participating - clearly, Dad was the most keen on getting in there. Don't worry, the ride is pretty tame, although one little girl was heard saying on the way out, ``That was freaky.''

Shedd Aquarium: Sharks in captivity are not a big deal for people on the West Coast who can easily visit the outstanding aquariums in Monterey and Long Beach, but a new exhibit devoted to the ``devils of the deep'' is creating quite a stir here in the Midwest, thousands of miles from either ocean.

Wild Reef, at the Shedd Aquarium in Grant Park, endeavors to replicate a Philippine coral world. A 400,000-gallon tank is home to more than 25 sharks, most of them the benign black-tip and white-tip reef variety - but don't spoil the fright for the kids.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) ``Sue,'' one of the most complete tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the world, is the most famous resident at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History.

(2) A visitor to the Art Institute of Chicago admires Georges Seurat's ``A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.''

Eric Noland/Travel Editor