The highly anticipated Modern Wing will house the Art Institute’s permanent collections of modern European art, including works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian and Salvador Dali, and contemporary art by such masters as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol. Galleries also will showcase collections in photography, architecture and design.

Inaugurating the special exhibitions galleries will be Cy Twombly: The Natural World, Selected Works 2001-2007, with works by the artist never seen in a U.S. museum. The show (through Sept. 13) will feature paintings, photographs, and acrylic and wax crayon works on paper. Sculptural pieces made of wood, wire, plaster, plastic, string and paint refer to nature in their suggestion of weathering and decay. The engagement with the natural world is a theme that will run throughout the exhibition, befitting the transparency and dialogue with the outdoors that the Modern Wing offers.

The wing will be oriented around Griffin Court, which forms the building’s “main street,” offering dramatic views of Millennium Park and the downtown skyline. On the first floor will the Ryan Education Center, with classroom and studio space for school children and families; a dedicated entrance for school groups; and a garden with a specially commissioned sculpture. The third floor has a dining facility and the Bluhm Family Terrace, which will feature rotating sculpture exhibitions by contemporary artists.