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Chicago’s storied Union League club is selling two of its most valuable paintings to raise funds for a $10 million renovation of the nearly 100-year-old Loop Building.
The works include French Impressionist Claude Monet’s rare painting “Blooming Apple Tree,” which the club has exhibited since it purchased it in 1895.
The club, struggling with operating losses and declining membership due to the pandemic, rejected an offer to sell the painting for $7.2 million three years ago.
“We believe now is the time to raise funds,” said Executive Vice President Frank DeVincentis, 44, who is leading the club’s renovation task force. He added: “Rather than imposing a one-off assessment on existing members, we believe it is most appropriate to raise funds through the sale of art.”
In addition to Monet’s work, the club also sells “Land of Manana,” a 1917 Native American landscape by Walter Woofer. He was born in Germany, grew up in Kentucky, and worked in Chicago for a time, but he is an artist who has made a name for himself with his work. Depiction of the Southwest. The club hired New York-based Winston Art Group to handle the sale of both paintings.
Proceeds will be used to fund Project Burnham, a multi-year reinvestment in the private club, a Chicago members-only social institution since 1879. The 330,000-square-foot high-rise clubhouse, built in 1926 at 65 W. Jackson, will undergo extensive renovations to include 180 guest rooms, event and dining space, extensive athletic facilities and infrastructure.
The Union League Club has the largest private art collection in the Midwest, including more than 700 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs. No work is more prized than the early Monet, which he purchased for $500 in 1895 by members of the museum’s club.
Completed in 1872, “Blooming Apple Tree” captures an idyllic French path in spring, snaking through blooming white leaves. The 23-by-29-inch painting was loaned to the museum for the 2020 Monet exhibit, but much of its history has been quietly hidden in a cove on the second floor of the Union League Club.
DeVincentis, a managing director at Morgan Stanley and a club member for 20 years, said the piece was recently removed in preparation for sale.
Art sales were sparked by the pandemic, accelerating the decline of some of Chicago’s oldest and most exclusive private clubs. For example, the Standard Club, long the social nexus of Chicago’s Jewish elite, closed in May 2020 after declining membership and financial difficulties.
Union League clubs were not immune to similar financial challenges.
In 2020, the club decided to sell the Monet and other paintings after the pandemic made operations difficult, costing it $400,000 a month and hundreds of members. However, the disputed deal to sell the work to an Australian art dealer for $7.2 million ended in Cook County Circuit Court, with a judge ruling in March 2021 that the Union League club was bound by an agreement to complete the deal. It was ruled that it would not.
After three years, the club expects Monet’s value to increase significantly.
“We’re over the $7.2 million number,” DeVincentis said. “It’s a much bigger surplus.”
The Union League Club’s influential membership once included such luminaries as architect Daniel Burnham. Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago shaped the city, its park system, and open lakefront development.
DeVincentis appointed Burnham to help the club both renovate its aging facilities and rebuild its declining base, where membership has rebounded to about 2,000 but remains below pre-pandemic levels. He said he is considering it.
Given that Chicago offices are still hovering at 50% of 2019 occupancy and social spaces are increasingly serving as coworking, selling some of the most prominent works of art to fund renovations is He said it was an investment in the club’s future post-pandemic. Space for hybrid and fully remote employees.
“If urban clubs like ours want to continue to maintain the value that is important to our members, we will need to reinvest,” DeVincentis said. “A lot of people work in a world where their employers have probably reduced their office footprint, so we’re a great option for them. You can use our membership facilities to get your work done.”
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
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