The late Chicago plastic mogul, art collector, and philanthropist Stefan Edlis, together with his wife Gael Neeson, amassed an era-defining collection of postwar and contemporary art. The two focused on evolving their collection with the changing times, setting in place self-imposed rules that would allow them to bring in new works and let go of old ones in a continuous cycle. “They were committed to having their works on view,” Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago director Madeleine Grynsztejn recently told ARTnews. “That’s the kind of rigorous parameters that other collectors don’t necessarily follow.”
One of the city’s top arts patrons, Edlis is remembered most for his major gifts to museums, having donated 44 works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Richard Prince, Damien Hirst and more worth a collective $400 million to the Art Institute of Chicago. The couple’s collection also included works by provocative artists such as Maurizio Cattelan and Jeff Koons.
“They encouraged all of us to explore the often challenging and clashing ideas present in the now,” said Cathy Busch, Christie’s Midwest managing director.
Below, some highlights from Edlis and Neeson’s holdings, as well as others in the MCA’s permanent collection, purchased through the couple’s acquisition fund established in 2000.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Perrotin. Photo Zeno Zotti. Maurizio Cattelan, Him, 2001.
One of the most inflamous works to ever come through Edlis and Neeson’s holdings is Marutizio Cattelan’s Him (2001). The couple installed an edition of the child-sized kneeling figure in their personal library, where the shocking sculpture appeared to be gazing up at volumes of historical texts.
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Image Credit: Nathan Keay Jenny Holzer, For Chicago, 2007.
Purchased through Edlis and Neeson’s acquisition fund for the MCA, this large-scale LED light installation features text that appears to scroll along a gallery floor. “We could have never bought it otherwise,” said MCA director Madeline Grynzstein.
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Image Credit: Courtesy MCA, Chicago Jasper Johns, In Memory of My Feelings – Frank O’Hara, 1961.
Made of two canvases hinged together, this painting mimes the composition of Johns’s signature Flag painting. Its title pays homage to the New York poet Frank O’Hara, who, like Johns, was gay, and it loosely alludes to Johns’s relationship with artist Robert Rauschenberg.
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Image Credit: Photo Nathan Keay/Courtesy MCA Chicago Matthew Barney’s, DRAWING RESTRAINT 8: Les Bois, 2003.
The MCA acquired Matthew Barney’s DRAWING RESTRAINT 8: Les Bois (2003) in honor of Francesco Bonami, who formerly served as a curator at the museum. The translucent polycarbonate case displaying a set of drawings is an example from a long-term conceptual project begun in 1987, in which the artist produced sculptures, drawings, and video installations relating to themes of bodily atrophy and organic systems.
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Image Credit: Photo Nathan Keay/Courtesy MCA, Chicago Thomas Schütte, Ganz Grosse Geister (Big Spirits XL), 2004.
The MCA’s acquisition fund helped bring German artist Thomas Schütte’s 2004 Ganz Grosse Geister sculpture, also known as Big Spirit XL, to the museum. Schütte’s three large-scale yellow and white humanoid figures are installed on the museum’s outside pavilion.
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Image Credit: Photo Nathan Keay/©MCA Chicago Olafur Eliasson, Your eye activity field, 2009.
Eliasson’s Your eye activity (2009), a work made up of several wall-mounted gradient colored panels, has appeared in the MCA’s main atrium and was commissioned for the museum. The work contains 300 color bars, representing each of the 300 nanometers in the visible light spectrum.