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Art Institute of Chicago Presents Drawings From The Irving Stenn Jr. Collection

The Art Institute of Chicago presents an exhibition of Drawings from the Irving Stenn Jr. Collection, featuring exceptional works by Johns, Kelly, LeWitt, Judd, and more on view November 19, 2011–February 26, 2012.

Bridget Riley, Turquoise and Red Greys, Sequence Study, 1967. Gouache over graphite on ivory wove graph paper, 444 x 332 mm. Partial and promised gift of the Irving Stenn, Jr. Drawings Collection.

In only a decade, Chicago lawyer Irving Stenn Jr. has built a collection of more than 170 seminal drawings by more than 90 artists, a collection that focuses on the paradigm-shifting 1960s. This era saw a radical change in the way in which works on paper were made, used, and appreciated, and for the first time the public will be able to see this foundational moment in the history of drawing as represented through Stenn’s singular sensibility.

Contemporary Drawings from the Irving Stenn Jr. Collection will be on view in the Jean and Steven Goldman Prints and Drawings Galleries in the Richard and Mary L. Gray Wing (Galleries 124–127) of the Art Institute of Chicago. This illustrative and exceptional exhibition includes more than 120 works by Mel Bochner, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, and Fred Sandback, as well as pieces by Agnes Denes, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Nam June Paik, and Ellsworth Kelly. More than 100 drawings are promised gifts to the museum—drawings that not only showcase Stenn’s personal taste, vision, and passion as a collector but also offer a window into an era when artists reconsidered and reinvented the medium of drawing.

About Irving Stenn Jr.
Irving Stenn Jr. is an attorney in private practice in downtown Chicago. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, from which he also received his law degree in 1955. He is a life trustee and Honorary Governing Member of the Art Institute of Chicago and serves on the Committee for Prints and Drawings and the Committee for Contemporary Art. The Irving Stenn Jr. Family Gallery, on the second floor of the Modern Wing, is named in his honor.

Contemporary Drawings from the Irving Stenn Jr. Collection is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and curated by Mark Pascale, curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute.

The Art Institute of Chicago collects, preserves, and interprets works of art of the highest quality, representing the world’s diverse artistic traditions, for the inspiration and education of the public and in accordance with our profession’s highest ethical standards and practices. – www.artinstituteofchicago.org

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