The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) has received a donation of $75m—among the largest in the museum’s history—from the collectors and philanthropists Aaron I. Fleischman and Lin Lougheed.
The gift will support the AIC’s long-running plan to expand and modernise its campus, a project that the Spanish architecture firm Barozzi Veiga was brought on in 2019 to help realise. As part of that project, a new building showcasing the museum’s collection of art from the late-19th century to the present will be named the Aaron I. Fleischman and Lin Lougheed Building in the donors’ honour.
“It’s exciting to be part of Barozzi Veiga’s long-term plan for the Art Institute,” Lougheed said in a statement. “The future building plans will add to Chicago’s reputation as the centre of innovative architecture.”
The museum has not revealed when construction work on its campus overhaul might begin or end. “We are so excited, and the prospect of being able to show more of our collection to visitors motivates us to move as quickly as is responsible,” a museum spokesperson tells The Art Newspaper. “But we don't have a specific timeline to share yet.”
Fleischman and Lougheed are now residents of Florida, but they both have Midwestern roots, originally hailing from Highland Park, Illinois (a community about 25 miles north of Chicago), and Ottumwa, Iowa, respectively. A longtime lawyer and investor, Fleischman has been collecting art for around 40 years; he is a trustee emeritus of the AIC and an honorary trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where he endowed a curator of modern and contemporary art role. He previously served on the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The last major change to the Art Institute of Chicago was the inauguration, in 2009, of the $300m Modern Wing, designed by Renzo Piano Photo by Lou Stejskal, via Flickr
“Touring the collections on view and in storage, I came to believe that more of the museum‘s extraordinary collection needed to be available to visitors and presented in world-class architecture,” Fleischman said in a statement. “Lin and I are excited about naming a new building that will create additional space for visitors to see more of the collection than they have ever been able to see before, and for the museum to tell a more complete story of modern and contemporary art.”
Lougheed has worked extensively in the education sector, and has served on the boards of several botanical gardens and art organisations, including Oolite Arts and the Miami Art Museum (now the Pérez Art Museum Miami). He is also a member of New York’s Explorers Club, and an expedition he was part of in Madagascar discovered a new species of palm. In 2019, another new species of palm, discovered on the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire, was named Sabal lougheediana in his honour.
“We are beyond grateful to collaborate with Aaron and Lin to imagine the future of our campus,” James Rondeau, the AIC’s president and director, said in a statement. “Their exceptional generosity and vision will allow our aspirations to become a reality, and I am grateful for their dedication to Chicago, and to serving our visitors for generations to come.”
The museum’s last major intervention into its campus, the $300m Modern Wing designed by Renzo Piano, was inaugurated in 2009. Earlier this year, the AIC received a $25m gift from Carolyn, Jacolyn and John Bucksbaum to fund the creation of a new photography centre.