Chicago’s most prestigious museum, the Art Institute, renowned for its masterpieces from all over the world and spanning different eras, is enriching its collection with a significant new addition: the most prestigious private collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures by great French masters from the 16th to the 19th century in the United States.
This collection was assembled over the years by Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz.
The donation includes approximately 2,000 drawings, 200 paintings, and 50 sculptures, featuring artists who appear in every art history textbook covering this period, including Charles Le Brun, François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, and Théodore Géricault.
Another distinguishing feature of this collection is its focus on female artists, featuring works by Anne Vallayer-Coster, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Marie-Gabrielle Capet, and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. It also includes rare pieces that are difficult to find in the United States, such as those by Jacques Bellange, Reynaud Levieux, and Nicolas Prévost.
Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz have gone even further: to ensure the long-term preservation, management, and accessibility of the collection, as well as programming specifically dedicated to French art, the donation will be accompanied by a gradual financial contribution. This will support the conservation of the works, the organization of special exhibitions, academic research, and the work of the museum staff, including diagnostics.
Who Are the Horvitzes?
Jeffrey Horvitz is a private investor (Vice President of Moreland Management Company), an art collector, and a trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Since the 1980s, his collecting interests have focused on Italian and French Old Master drawings, cinnabar lacquer from China, Vietnamese porcelain, Khmer bronzes, and contemporary art.
His wife, Carol Louise Sunday, passionate about Asian art, has significantly influenced the growth of this part of their collection.
More precisely, Jeffrey Horvitz’s love for all things French began in 1964 during a pivotal trip with his grandmother and a cousin. “I was 14 years old and had never been outside the United States, except for a trip to the Caribbean,” Horvitz recalls. “So, going to Europe was a big deal. It was a five-week trip, and we visited most of the major capitals.” It had only been about 20 years since World War II, and Europe was still rebuilding. Horvitz remembers that the exteriors of many buildings in Paris were blackened, worn down by time and the devastation of war. “But Europe was still inexpensive for Americans, who were quite wealthy compared to post-war Europeans,” he adds. “So, it was a somewhat glamorous vacation because we could stay in beautiful hotels and dine in good restaurants. It was truly a life-changing experience for someone growing up in a suburb of Cleveland. All the cities were fascinating. In the end, Paris became my main focus, but that came a bit later.”
In the mid-1970s, while working on his second degree at UCLA, Horvitz started selling inexpensive prints to earn some extra money. His initiative quickly turned into a full-time business, and soon, his attraction to art became stronger than his academic pursuits. “I decided not to finish my thesis and instead became a full-time dealer of contemporary and 20th-century art.”
In the 1980s, he tried to balance his family’s real estate business with his art dealership, but around 1983, he decided to change course and start his own collection. “I asked around and ruled out many areas,” Horvitz explains. “Tribal arts had too many fakes, and Asian art wasn’t quite my aesthetic. What could I collect that was similar to my area of expertise but not identical? The answer was Old Masters. Drawings were less expensive and relatively abundant, so that’s how my collection began, with a focus on French and Italian works.”
By the late 1980s, Horvitz says, several factors led him to focus exclusively on French drawings. One of those factors was the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which at the time had a large acquisition budget and was building a collection of Italian drawings. Due to this high demand, Italian drawings saw their prices skyrocket. “But French drawings were still accessible, and I realized I was particularly drawn to that aesthetic. So my French collection grew much faster than the Italian one.”
For this reason, in January 2008, Jeffrey Horvitz decided to sell his incredible collection of Italian drawings at Sotheby’s New York, which included works by Parmigianino, Giulio Romano, Lelio Orsi, Federico Barocci, Annibale Carracci, Guercino, Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo.
“We are so grateful to Jeffrey and Carol,” said James Rondeau, President, and Eloise W. Martin, Director of the Art Institute of Chicago. “Their continued support and passion for the museum are truly special—not only because they will allow millions of visitors to experience a more complete history of French art, but also because their generous financial support for the care and research of this collection will enable us to continue advancing our broader mission.”
