The sales-minded new management of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has been busy for years on direct and indirect schemes to spruce up its volumes of knowledge ($198 and up). This week, the latest indirect schemesome $200,000 worth of contemporary American art was on display at Chicago's Art Institute. The show made news on its own.
The Britannica's new status as a U.S. art patron was no overnight achievement. When Sears, Roebuck & Co. gave its famed, unprofitable stepchild to the University of Chicago in 1943, along went Sears's Elkin ("Buck") Powell as the Britannica's...