The Artwork Institute of Chicago (AIC) has obtained an enormous present 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donation displays the scope and depth of the Horvitz assortment, famend as the biggest privately held trove of French Outdated Grasp works within the US.
The gathering, amassed over 4 a long time by Jeffrey Horvitz, a non-public 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 function, 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 types.
“We’re so grateful to Jeffrey and Carol for this impactful present,” James Rondeau, the AIC’s president director, mentioned in an announcement. “Their continued help and fervour for the museum is really particular, not solely as a result of it’ll enable tens of millions of holiday makers to expertise a fuller story of French artwork, but in addition as a result of their beneficiant monetary help of the continuing care and analysis of this assortment will enable us to proceed advancing our broader mission.”
The present 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 items” to make sure ongoing conservation, staffing and analysis for the gathering; whereas actual figures haven’t been disclosed, the museum expects that these funds will represent “one of many largest monetary items within the historical past of the Artwork Institute”.
In an announcement, Jeffrey Horvitz mentioned: “We have now all the time envisioned this assortment remaining as an entire with a view to be greater than the sum of its elements, and for it to go to a significant American museum the place probably the most guests can expertise these creative treasures, the place students and curators can avail of the assets and advance this vital analysis, and the place our enthusiasm will resonate lengthy after we’re gone. We spent years excited about the place the gathering ought to finally go—there was no extra good alternative than the Artwork Institute.”
