LEROY NEIMAN FUNDS NEW SAIC BUILDING

Famed Playboy magazine "Femlin" artist and all-around splashy expressionist painter LeRoy Neiman, along with his wife, Janet Byrne Neiman, have gifted the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) -- where they both studied -- with a sweet donation of $5 million to fund a new student center. To be named the LeRoy Neiman Center, the new facility is to include a 56-foot-long, eight-foot-tall mural -- the artist’s largest to date -- titled Summertime Along the Indiana Dunes, which Neiman originally created for Indiana’s Mercantile National Bank in 1965. Both Neimans are signing the work. The two-story center is to be open to the general public as well as to students, faculty and alumni, and is slated to feature a lounge, café and art gallery.

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