The Artwork Institute of Chicago (AIC) has obtained an enormous present of French artwork from the collectors Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz. Comprised of virtually 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 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 kinds.
“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 keenness for the museum is really particular, not solely as a result of it can enable tens of millions of tourists 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 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 mentioned: “We’ve got at all times envisioned this assortment remaining as an entire in an effort 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 inventive treasures, the place students and curators can avail of the assets and advance this essential analysis, and the place our enthusiasm will resonate lengthy after we’re gone. We spent years fascinated by the place the gathering ought to finally go—there was no extra excellent selection than the Artwork Institute.”
