Art Institute of Chicago gifted more than 2,200 French Old Masters

The Artwork Institute of Chicago (AIC) has obtained a large reward of French artwork from the collectors Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz. Comprised of just about 2,000 drawings, 200 work and 50 sculptures by legendary artists like Jacques-Louis David and François Boucher, the donation displays the scope and depth of the Horvitz assortment, famend as the most important privately held trove of French Previous Grasp works within the US.

The gathering, amassed over 4 many years by Jeffrey Horvitz, a personal investor, tracks French historical past and tradition over the course of 300 years, spanning items from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Whereas Rococo and Romantic artists do characteristic, the first style represented is Neo-Classissm, a motion that emerged within the mid-1800s as a morality-focused response to the excesses of its predecessors, drawing inspiration from classical Greco-Roman varieties.

“We’re so grateful to Jeffrey and Carol for this impactful reward,” James Rondeau, the AIC’s president director, stated in an announcement. “Their continued assist and keenness for the museum is actually particular, not solely as a result of it is going to permit tens of millions of tourists to expertise a fuller story of French artwork, but additionally as a result of their beneficiant monetary assist of the continued care and analysis of this assortment will permit us to proceed advancing our broader mission.”

The reward arrives on the heels of two exhibitions on the museum drawn from the Horvitzes’ assortment—French Neoclassical Work from The Horvitz Assortment and Revolution to Restoration: French Drawings from The Horvitz Assortment—each of which closed final month. The Horvitzes have additionally dedicated to “phased monetary presents” to make sure ongoing conservation, staffing and analysis for the gathering; whereas precise figures haven’t been disclosed, the museum expects that these funds will represent “one of many largest monetary presents within the historical past of the Artwork Institute”.

In an announcement, Jeffrey Horvitz stated: “We now have at all times envisioned this assortment remaining as an entire as a way to be greater than the sum of its components, and for it to go to a significant American museum the place probably the most guests can expertise these inventive treasures, the place students and curators can avail of the sources and advance this essential analysis, and the place our enthusiasm will resonate lengthy after we’re gone. We spent years fascinated about the place the gathering ought to in the end go—there was no extra excellent selection than the Artwork Institute.”