Art Institute of Chicago Gains a Neoclassicist Trove

A wealth of Neoclassicist artwork has joined the holdings of the Artwork Institute of Chicago by way of collectors Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz, who’ve gifted the museum round 2,250 works of French artwork made between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The reward comes after held two exhibits dedicated to the Horvitzes’ assortment, one targeted on Neoclassicist work, the opposite on drawings. Each exhibitions have been staged final 12 months.

Jeffrey, a non-public investor, appeared solo on the annual ARTnews High 200 Collectors checklist between 1994 and 1999. Carol is presently a trustee on the Artwork Institute of Chicago.

The vast majority of the artworks they gifted to the Artwork Institute—some 2,000 of them—are drawings. Of the remaining 250, 200 are work, whereas 50 are sculptures. Their assortment is being touted by the museum as the most important grouping of French artwork produced between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries held privately within the US.

Alongside the artworks, the Horvitzes have additionally offered funding for the care of those items, although the museum didn’t specify how a lot cash they’d give.

Although the reward consists of works protecting a large breadth of French artwork historical past, with the works by Rococo painter François Boucher and Romantic painter Théodore Géricault included, it’s richest in objects associated to Neoclassicism, a motion that emerged through the mid-Seventeenth century as a response to the extravagance of artwork on the time. Neoclassicist artists sought a return to cause and morality, usually providing pictures of historical Greece and Rome as one thing to be aspired to.

In an announcement, Jeffrey mentioned, “We have now all the time envisioned this assortment remaining as an entire with a purpose to be greater than the sum of its components, and for it to go to a serious American museum the place essentially the most guests can expertise these inventive treasures, the place students and curators can avail of the assets and advance this necessary analysis, and the place our enthusiasm will resonate lengthy after we’re gone. We spent years desirous about the place the gathering ought to in the end go—there was no extra excellent selection than the Artwork Institute.”

Beneath are simply seven of the works that the Horvitzes gave to the Artwork Institute of Chicago.