When plastics mogul Stefan Edlis bought a Jeff Koons “Rabbit” in 1991, it cost him $945,000.
Today, it’s worth nearly $100 million, according to the institution where he donated it, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which announced his death Tuesday, in Chicago, at age 94.
Young Stefan, born in Vienna, was only 15 when his family fled Europe. He wound up burying dead Japanese soldiers at Iwo Jima while serving in the Navy in World War II, according to an interview with the MCA.
His taste was discerning and sweeping.
In 2015, he and his wife Gael Neeson gave a record-setting cache to the Art Institute–42 pieces of art valued at more than $400 million, a donation featured in the 2018 HBO art documentary, “The Price of Everything.”
But he said there was no science to collecting.
“The art market marches to its own tune,” he told the Sun-Times in 1988. “Anyone who tries to forecast it is doomed to fail.”
In addition to art, he and his wife donated millions to many cultural institutions, including the Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, WBEZ, the Santa Fe Ballet and the Aspen Art Museum, according to Inside Philanthropy. They lived in Aspen for part of the year.
They also supported the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and People for the American Way.
Vienna-born Stefan fled World War II Europe as a teen. He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, burying the Japanese war dead after the Battle of Iwo Jima, he told the MCA.
In 1965, Mr. Edlis founded Apollo Plastics in Chicago, which made parts for some of the world’s most popular mass-produced postwar objects: Motorola flip phones, RCA record players and Zenith radios.
Fittingly, his collection started with plastic artworks, according to ARTnews.
The works he and his wife donated to the Art Institute included pieces by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol.
