46
SEPTEMBER 2015
A PERSON OF INTEREST
“A Person of Interest” is the
CBA Record’s
attempt to acquaint youwith someonewe think
you will enjoy getting to know. If you have an
idea for someonewe should feature, we’d love to
hear from you! Send an email to publications@
chicagobar.org.
A PERSONOF
INTEREST
BY PAMELA S. MENAKER
Getting to Know…Irving Stenn, Jr.
H
ow many lawyers get to pursue
their second passion in life? Irving
Stenn, Jr., is doing just that.
After practicing law for more than 50
years, Stenn has been able to take time
now in his golden years to travel the world
collecting modern art. And now he’s into
giving it away.
In what has been called one of the most
generous donations to the Art Institute of
Chicago, Stenn donated his entire collec-
tion of 105 drawings that will rotate with
other permanent collections.
“I wanted to make this donation so
that everyone could enjoy and appreciate
this very particular area of art that often
goes unnoticed,” Stenn said. “Drawings
on paper is a very intimate art form. And
every one of them is unique. They also
appeal to me because they are the most raw
visualization of an artist’s thought process.”
After graduating from the University of
Michigan and then receiving his law degree
there in 1955, Stenn, 82, started out as a
Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney
before leaving to form his own firm with
friend, Robert J. Cooney to handle per-
sonal injury work. Stenn and his late wife
Marcia began collecting art when they
bought an old Victorian house in 1968
in Lincoln Park. Their first thought was
to tear it down because the neighborhood
then had not yet gentrified.
“Instead, we saw the beauty in this
grand old 4,000-square foot house with
12-foot ceilings and we did a total rehab
with architect HarryWeese that took three
years,” Stenn said. They transformed it into
a contemporary 1960s look with expansive
white walls that needed something more.
And it was there that the couple’s fondness
for art began.
They started with a Frank Stella print,
“River of Ponds,” a lithograph that was
an example of minimalist art. “It’s not
abstract. It’s the less is more kind of thing
with lines and circles and diagrams,” Stenn
explained. From prints, they expanded to
collecting painting and sculptures until the
house was filled.
“They were very modest about their
collection,” said Mark Pascale, curator of
the Art Institute’s department of prints and
drawings who Stenn befriended more than
15 years ago. After Marcia passed away in
1999, Stenn began to focus on collecting
drawings on paper “because he was drawn
to works that had an organic connection
in style and content,” Pascale said.
But after spending years and years
collecting and appreciating these unique
pieces – there are no copies – Stenn decided
to gift the entire collection to the Art
Institute so that others could appreciate
these drawings. And with “this significant
gift, the museum’s holdings of artists who
worked between World War II and the
present has changed. Its strength and
depth has filled in a lot of gaps for the Art
Institute of Chicago,” Pascale said. “What
is particularly interesting is that Irv stud-
ied each artist and made it a point to get
significant seminal work.”
As Stenn puts it, “I wanted art that was
historically important, what each artist did
at first. I wanted his original idea.” And the
public’s reaction to the collection that has
been added to the permanent gallery has
been very positive, Pascale said.
“The collection of 105 contemporary
drawings by a who’s who of contemporary
artists offers a window into an era when
artists reconsidered and reinvented the
medium of drawing,” Pascale said. “We
are very appreciative of Irv’s generosity and
commitment to the public to learn about
this important artistic era.”
PamelaS.Menaker isCommu-
nications Partner at Clifford
Law Offices and a member
of the CBA Record Editorial
Board.