Art Institute of Chicago : Warhol pieces part of largest gift in Art Institute history

Nine works by the pop artist are among 42 donated by Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson. The museum has pledged to keep them on permanent view for the next 50 years.

Retired manufacturing executive and art collector Stefan Edlis and his wife, Gael Neeson, have donated what the Art Institute of Chicago is calling the largest gift in the museum's history—including works by Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter and Jeff Koons.

The gift, with a reported value of $400 million, was approved at a museum board meeting last night and announced immediately after. The museum has vowed to keep the collection on permanent view for the next 50 years, a point that cemented the donation, Edlis said in a statement.

"I have donated works of art to museums for years but have been frustrated by their lack of exposure," he said. "The fact that the Art Institute proposed keeping the works on permanent view for 50 years was a totally convincing argument for gifting the collection. Gael and I are delighted that these works of art will be in the Art Institute's long-term plans."

Stefan Edlis and his wife, Gael Neeson, have donated major works of their collection to the Art Institute.

 Art Institute board Chairman Robert Levy called the Edlis/Neeson gift “incredibly rare” in terms of importance and scope. It's the kind of gift that occurs “perhaps once every 40 or 50 years.”

Museum President Douglas Druick said the gift “cements the status of our already strong contemporary holdings” and “allows us to build one of the richest narratives of art under one roof.”

He said it ranks alongside the major gifts of 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.”

The Art Institute said the collection includes “an outstanding selection of internationally recognized masterpieces that capture the collectors' passion for art created at mid-century and beyond: the important work that paved the path to Pop Art, Warhol and the full flowering of the movement, and its imprint on later artists.”

Two self-portraits of Andy Warhol are included in the gift to the Art Institute of Chicago.

The heart of the collection, the museum notes, is nine works by Warhol, including two self-portraits; images of Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and the Mona Lisa; and a work in his famed "Electric Chair" series.

James Rondeau, the contemporary art curator at the Art Institute, said the museum would now be able "to give Andy Warhol his rightful place in our galleries."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in the statement that the collection will elevate the city's status as “one of the great global arts destinations.”

Edlis is a self-made man who built Apollo Plastics, a Chicago plastics fabrication company, before selling it in 2000. He and his wife have since become familiar names on the arts scene as collectors and philanthropists.

Edlis has been a life trustee and leading donor for decades at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where he and his wife have donated iconic works, named the Edlis Neeson Theater and established a major acquisitions fund. They also support Chicago's WBEZ-FM 91.5 radio station, which broadcasts some of its programming from the Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson Foundation Talk Studio, and Lyric Opera of Chicago.

In Aspen, Colo., where they also have a home, they are founding members of the Aspen Art Museum and major supporters of the Aspen Music Festival & School as well as the Aspen Institute.