The Art Institute of Chicago has received its largest gift of art in its 136-year history, worth an estimated $400 million to $500 million (approximately £265 million to £330 million).
A total of 42 major contemporary works have been donated by philanthropists Stefan T. Edlis and his wife Gael Neeson, who are based in the American city. It is made up of masterpieces by Andy Warhol (nine in total), Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman and, among others, Cy Twombly.
Douglas Druick, president and Eloise W. Martin director of the Art Institute of Chicago, said that he and his colleagues were grateful to the couple for their generous gift, describing the works as being some of the very best from their collection.
“Against the backdrop of our encyclopedic collection, the Edlis/Neeson gift allows us to build one of the richest narratives of art under one roof,” he went onto say. “The Art Institute has a world-class collection built through transformative gifts like Stefan and Gael’s, going back to the museum’s founding in the era of Impressionism.
“The Edlis/Neeson Collection will join the ranks of cornerstone gifts and bequests from Bertha Palmer, Frederic Clay and Helen Birch Bartlett, Martin A. Ryerson, Arthur Jerome Eddy, and Ed and Lindy Bergman, all of which have made the museum what we are today.”
Highlights of the collection, as selected by James Rondeau, curator of contemporary art at the institute, include Johns Target (1961), Rauschenberg’s Untitled (1955), Twombly’s Untitled (Bolsena) (1969), Warhol’s Liz #3 (Early Coloured Liz) (1963), and Sherman’s Untitled #92 (1981).
Mr Rondeau said the entire collection will “take on a new resonance” when they go on display, courtesy of the “dialogue” they will have with the Art Institute’s existing collection of works (which is already rich with examples by some of the artists cited above).
Explaining his gift, Mr Edlis said: “I have donated works of art to museums for years but have been frustrated by their lack of exposure. The fact that the art institute proposed keeping the works on permanent view for 50 years in the Modern Wing was a totally convincing argument for gifting the collection to the museum.”
Developed six years ago and designed by the Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano six years, the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago is focused on showcasing the museum’s collection of modern and contemporary art in one of the most effective spaces in the world. These specific works gifted by the couple are set to go on display in 2016.
Cadogan Tate has extensive experience in shipping fine art all over the world.