Lifelong Connoisseurship and Giving: The Alsdorf Galleries of Asian Art

Marilynn Alsdorf in her Chicago home.
Buddhist Deities Hevajra and Nairatmya, c. 1600. Collection of James and Marilynn Alsdorf.

Few people have had a greater impact on the Art Institute of Chicago in the last half-century than Marilynn and James Alsdorf. To the world at large, the Alsdorf name is linked with collections of Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art that are unrivaled in quality and depth. At the Art Institute, their reputation extends beyond their collections to their thoughtful leadership and remarkable generosity. Marilynn and James Alsdorf’s lifelong relationship with the Art Institute has touched and enriched almost every curatorial department, ensuring the museum’s continued growth and vitality.

Building on the generous legacy that she and her late husband began, Marilynn Alsdorf has given a total of $20 million to endow an associate curatorship of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan and Islamic art, a professorship in South Asian art history at the School of the Art Institute, and a gift to name the Marilynn B. and James W. Alsdorf Collection of Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art.

True connoisseurs, Marilynn and James Alsdorf built an impressive collection reflecting their wide range of interest, one which the Chicago Sun-Times dubbed “ten collections in one.” In addition to their notable works of Asian art, the Alsdorfs’ collection includes Renaissance jewelry, Classical art, and American folk art. These works are complemented by modern paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, including several pieces by Alberto Giacometti, whom the couple befriended.

Few people have been more central to the Art Institute’s post-war development than Jim and Marilynn Alsdorf,” said James N. Wood, former director of the Art Institute, whose relationship with the Alsdorfs spanned more than two decades. “While, from the outset, they recognized and supported the museum as one of the city’s and nation’s essential civic institutions, they were known first and foremost as collectors whose passion and intellectual curiosity had few equals.

Marilynn Alsdorf is a Life Trustee, past president of the Woman’s Board of the Art Institute of Chicago and a vice chair of the committee on Asian Art. Additionally, she is a member of the Woman’s Board and a member of the Committees on Contemporary Art, African and Amerindian Art, and Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture. James W. Alsdorf was first elected as a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1956, and served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees from 1975 to 1978. Mr. Alsdorf passed away in 1990.