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Receives the biggest monetary gift in its history
The Art Institute of Chicago has received the biggest monetary gift in its history, which will likely go a substantial way in helping the museum continue its 10-year “re-envisioned” project, a rebuild of the ionic building close to Lake Michigan.
The $75 million gift from two former Midwesterners – now residents of Florida - and notable art collectors will assist the museum in its “future campus vision,” the institute says in a release.
It “will allow the museum to realize building plans to expand access to the museum’s singular collection, maximize the Art Institute’s iconic location, and deliver a world-class experience to Chicagoans and visitors from around the world.”
Pictured is the Art Institute of Chicago, with a view of the Michigan Avenue entrance. Image: Courtesy Art Institute of Chicago
Specifically, the gift will enable the institute to build new galleries to house its 19th-century modern and contemporary art in a building named after the donors Aaron I. Fleischman and Lin Lougheed. It will be designed to “offer spectacular views of (Lincoln Park), the city, and the lake,” the museum says.
The donors noted the museum’s “extraordinary collection” of modern and contemporary art, but which has been constrained from display for space reasons and therefore the need “to tell a more complete story” of the works.
The new building will be part of the institute’s goal of renewing its square block footprint with the aid of Barcelona-based architectural firm Barozzi Veiga.
Construction work has already started on reconfiguring the campus, hemmed in by Michigan Avenue (the main entrance), Monroe, Columbus, and Jackson streets. It’s just over one block away from Lake Michigan in the city center.
The museum did not make anyone available for interviews.
But local academic art historian Rebecca Zorach said the institute has long wanted to grow and firm up its prestige as a world-class museum. It’s the second-largest museum in the U.S. with almost 300,000 works.
Zorach, director of graduate studies in the art history department at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, said creating more space, particularly for its 20th-century contemporary collection, has been a priority.
“They’ve been collecting pretty intensively, and also, it’s an area where there’s a lot of growth with potential donors. They want to be able to accept gifts and actually put them up,” she said.
Zorach said the museum contains several buildings of different vintages and there are challenges with reconfiguring the campus because of its limited area as well as a Chicago height restriction, which means the museum can’t block the view of the lakefront from buildings in the core.
“Not only are they constrained by the surrounding streets but by height restrictions,” she said. “I think one of the things that they’re trying to do with this big gift is to create a kind of integrated master plan that will allow for a more consistent feel within the overall set of structures.”
Zorach said another issue is accessibility for the public and for people who have disabilities specifically.
“One of the things they’re trying to do with the master plan is make the museum appear to be more open, maybe on more sides, of the block that it occupies,” she said. “To kind of create more of a porous boundary to the institution is how I understood at least what some people have been saying about it.”
She also noted there are physical difficulties navigating the museum.
“I think especially people who have accessibility concerns, it’s not that easy to get around in and anything they can do to make it easier for diverse visitors would be great.”
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