Inside Art — The New York Times — Art Institute of Chicago — Bellier Art

Article by The New York Times detailing the acquisition of an Edvard Munch painting by the Art Institute of Chicago, facilitated by Paris dealer Luc Bellier.

Transcription of the article

THE NEW YORK TIMES INSIDE ART; UNDERWRITING DIA’S DREAMS By CAROL VOGEL – Published November 3, 2000

Gifts totaling $50 million to the Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea will underwrite a host of projects, transforming the center into a national institution concentrating on artists of the 1960’s and 70’s. Two gifts of $25 million each — the largest donations ever made to the 25-year-old institution — are coming from the Lannan Foundation of Santa Fe, N.M., and from Dia’s chairman, Leonard Riggio, and his family. With these gifts Dia will have achieved 75 percent of its five-year goal of $100 million.

In addition to adding to its endowment, the gifts will enable Dia to complete its new museum in a 300,000-square-foot abandoned factory in Beacon, N.Y., scheduled to open in spring 2002. They will also pay for the construction of large-scale works like « City, » Michael Heizer’s epic-scale sculpture in the Nevada desert, and James Turrell’s « Roden Crater » in Arizona. And it will help create an endowment to sustain the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Tex.

Chicago’s New Munch

The Art Institute of Chicago recently acquired its first painting by Edvard Munch: « Girl Looking Out the Window, » a haunting 1892 image of a figure in a nightdress peering out a window into a moonlit night. « When people ask what we are looking for, I always have a laundry list, » said Douglas Druick, curator of European paintings, prints and drawings. « Luc Bellier, a Paris dealer, knew the institute had been seeking a Munch for years, and he discovered that this one was for sale from a private European collection. »

While the institute would not say how much it paid for the painting, experts say it is worth about $5 million. Painted a year before Munch’s famous « Scream, » it captures a special moment in his career, when he was moving away from the naturalism of an Impressionist like Caillebotte and toward the full-blown Expressionism of « The Scream. »