Art: High Winds in Chicago

Chicago sculptors went into the courts last week to keep a cool million dollars from slipping through their fingers.

At stake was $1,200,000 of interest accumulated in a trust fund set up 50 years ago by an art-loving Chicago lumber merchant named Benjamin F. Ferguson. Ferguson's intention had seemed clear enough: "The erection and maintenance of enduring statuary and monuments, in whole or in part of stone, granite or bronze in the parks, along the boulevards or in other public places." Chicago's Art Institute got the job of picking appropriate subjects and sites.

For years the Institute doled out Ferguson's fund to adorn...

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