Art Institute of Chicago receives $75 million donation for new addition

CHICAGO (CBS) — The Art Institute of Chicago is getting a new addition thanks to a $75 million donation.
The gift is courtesy of Aaron I. Fleischman and his husband, Dr. Lin Lougheed—who have been art collectors for many years. The Aaron I. Fleischman and Lin Lougheed Building will showcase modern art from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as contemporary art.
The design and location of the new building have yet to be finalized, but it will be on the campus of the Art Institute that spans from Michigan Avenue east to Columbus Drive at Adams Street downtown. It will be designed to have views of Millennium Park, the downtown Chicago streetscapes, and Lake Michigan.
The gift from Fleischman and Lougheed is the largest single naming gift in Art Institute history.
“We are beyond grateful to collaborate with Aaron and Lin to imagine the future of our campus,” James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, said in a news release. “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.”
Fleischman and Lougheed now live in Florida, but Fleischman is originally from north suburban Highland Park. Lougheed is originally from Ottumwa, Iowa.
Fleischman began collecting art in the mid-1980s, and has been an Art Institute trustee for nearly 15 years. He has also loaned works tot eh Art Institute.
“The Art Institute of Chicago has one of the world’s great art collections,” Fleischman said in the release. “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. 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.”
The Aaron I. Fleischman and Lin Lougheed Building will be part of a greater reimagining of the Art Institute campus using the Barcelona architectural term Barozzi Viega.
“One of my priorities has been to ensure that as our campus evolves, all Chicagoans feel welcome and invited into the Art Institute,” Denise Gardner, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago, said in the release. “This gift will allow us to continue building on our world-class visitor experience, providing more access, and showing more of our iconic collection than ever before.”
The last major addition to the Art Institute was the Modern Wing, designed by Rnzo Piano and situated on the north side of the campus for the museum—facing the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.
The original Beaux Arts Art Institute building, flanked by its two famous bronze lions, dates back to 1893. A research library followed in 1901, followed by eight major expansions for gallery and administrative space beginning with a bridge across the Illinois Central Railroad tracks. The Goodman Theatre also began as part of the Art Institute campus in 1922, and remained there until moving to its current space at 170 N. Dearborn St. in the Loop.
The Art Institute now occupies about 1 million square feet, making it the second largest art institution in the U.S. after the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York City.
Fleischman, 85, is recognized as a top collector of modern and contemporary American and European art. He is also an honorary trustee of the Met Museum in New York, and has also served on the boards of New York’s Whitney Museum of Art and several publicly-traded companies.
Fleischman is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and was a top-level Washington, D.C. attorney in the field of communications and related industries for many years. He founded his own Washington law firm that went on to explode in growth.
Lougheed, 78, has focused his career on international education. After college at UCLA, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey, and then earned an MA in a joint program with the University of Tehran and the University of Illinois, the Art Institute said. He received his doctorate from Teachers College Columbia University and two Fulbright awards, and then worked as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer assigned to embassies worldwide.
Lougheed is also the author of more than 40 EFL/ESP texts and test prep materials. As part of the New York City Explorers Club, he also carried an Explorers flag to Madagascar—where his team discovered a new species of palm tree. A newly-identified palm tree in Bonaire was also named sable lougheediana in Lougheed’s honor.