Art Institute gets huge grant from Rice Foundation

A multimillion-dollar grant, expected to be worth $10 millionwithin eight years, was awarded to the Art Institute of ChicagoWednesday by the Rice Foundation based in suburban Glenview.

The money will be used for an endowment fund to meet operatingcosts of the museum's new South Building, which will be named theDaniel F. and Ada L. Rice Building.

The $23 million building will open Sept. 17 with a majorexhibition, "The Art of Paul Gauguin."

Spokesmen withheld details about the exact size of the gift tothe Art Institute, but described it as one of the largest ever madeto the museum. With interest, the fund is expected to amount to $10million by 1996.

Part of the grant will endow a gallery of Oriental art and willpay for acquisition of a major Oriental work. ((ERROR: SEECORRECTION FIELD)) The gallery will be namedfor Beatrice Wright Sheridan, late sister of Daniel Rice.

The new building increases the Art Institute's exhibit space by32 percent and includes a skylit sculpture court and a hall forspecial exhibitions.

Other large grants for the building include $5.5 million fromthe Regenstein Foundation; $3.5 million from Jamee and MarshallField and the family of the late Roger McCormick, and $1 million fromthe Robert R. McCormick Charitable Trust.

A Chicago Park District bond issue of $11.3 million is helpingto meet construction costs.

Daniel Rice was a prominent Chicago grain broker. He and hiswife, Ada, also bred and raced thoroughbred horses and had a KentuckyDerby winner in 1965 with Lucky Debonair, ridden by jockey WillieShoemaker.

The Rices formed the foundation in 1947. Its assets exceed $55million, according to the annual Foundation Directory, and it hasaided such Chicago cultural institutions as the Shedd Aquarium, FieldMuseum and Illinois Institute of Technology. Daniel Rice died in1975, and his wife died two years later.