Donna and Howard Stone: Recent and Promised Gifts of Art

“In addition to monetary contributions toward the Modern Wing, many museum patrons are giving and promising important works of contemporary art,” said President and Eloise W. Martin Director James Cuno. “These commitments continue the sustained history of giving that has made the permanent collection among the most famous in the world.”

Diana Thater. Delphine, 1999. Howard and Donna Stone New Media Fund.

From the earliest days of the museum, benefactors such as Martin A. Ryerson, Bertha Honoré Palmer, and Frederic Clay Bartlett contributed works that today are internationally revered treasures residing in Chicago. Longtime supporter Donna Stone said, “Collecting contemporary art has been our passion for more than 30 years, and we are happy to be able to share it with future generations.”

The Stones have given a generous gift to name a gallery for film, video, and new media, which will bear their name in the Modern Wing. Throughout the couple's extraordinary history as patrons of the Art Institute, they have also given, loaned, and provided support for the purchase of more than 50 works of art by such influential artists as Felix Gonzáles-Torres, Steve McQueen, Cady Noland, Diana Thater, and Rosemarie Trockel. Most recently, they have indicated their intent to give their entire collection of nearly 20 new media works to the museum. This collection, one of the choicest groupings of new media works in private hands in the U.S., includes landmark installation works by artists Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Isaac Julien, Shirin Neshat, Anri Sala, and others.

“This is an outstanding leadership gift,” remarked James Rondeau Frances and Thomas Dittmer Curator of Contemporary Art. “The addition of this collection, does for our contemporary holdings in film, video, and new media what the extraordinary Lannan Foundation gift did for us in 1997 in terms of contemporary painting and sculpture. In a single gesture, the Stones, like the Lannan Foundation, will transform the depth and quality of our holdings in a focused way, with works of art at a level of quality and importance that we could not possibly afford to acquire on our own at this stage. With this gift added to our existing holdings, the Art Institute will have the very best collection of new media works of any major encyclopedic art museum in the U.S.”

Howard Stone is a trustee of the Art Institute and vice chair of the Board of Governors of the School of the Art Institute. He is also chair of the Academic Affairs Committee of the School and the museum’s Committee on Contemporary Art. Donna Stone is a member of the Committee on Prints and Drawings. She and her husband are members of the Society for Contemporary Art and among the foremost collectors of contemporary art in Chicago.