Voraciously curious and contagiously enthusiastic about art, Chicagoan Irving Stenn Jr. has across five decades assembled a spectacular collection of 20th-century art from various movements and across the world.
Stenn began collecting art with his wife, Marcia, in 1971, largely as a way of enhancing their newly renovated Lincoln Park home. Although neither had formal art training, she had a discerning eye, and he enjoyed the hunt for the right object. Together they approached the project as a shared learning activity, and in time, they acquired paintings and sculpture by significant artists of the post-World War II period.
When Marcia died in 1999, Stenn committed to learning more about drawings. Working with advice from Art Institute curators and others, Stenn amassed a collection of more than 200 works on paper, most by contemporary artists whose work has been linked to movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, and Post-Minimalism. Stellar among these works are groups of drawings by Joseph Albers, Sol LeWitt, and Mel Bochner. But Stenn also expanded his appreciation for art from different periods and places, collecting important drawings by Russian avant-garde artists such as Kazmir Malevich and Lyubov Sergeevna Popova and such Latin American artists as Leon Ferrari and Hélio Oiticica.
Stenn’s enthusiasm for art is matched only by his dedication to sharing his collection with the public. Over the past 20 years, the Stenn family has given more than 200 works, including paintings and sculptures, to the Art Institute of Chicago. This exhibition celebrates the family’s most recent gift: 100 drawings and prints given in 2023. One of the most significant and collection-enhancing bodies of works on paper given to the museum, this gift offers Art Institute visitors—now and for generations to come—the chance to delve into the experimental ethos of much of 20th-century art and to experience the work of trailblazing artists who had the audacity to try something new.
Contemporary Drawings from the Stenn Family Collection is curated by Mark Pascale, Janet and Craig Duchossois Curator, Prints and Drawings, and Felipe Villada Ruiz, senior research associate, Prints and Drawings.
Image: Cy Twombly (1928-2011),Untitled, 1960. Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of the Irving Stenn, Jr. Family. © Cy Twombly Foundation
