The George Lindemann Journal by George Lindemann

By Kelly Crow
July 13, 2012, 5:55 p.m. ET

Retired plastics manufacturer and Chicagoan Stefan Edlis has learned to say no when expanding his collection of modern and contemporary art. Size matters, for starters: If an artwork he admires can't fit under the 9-foot ceiling of his apartment, he says no. If he likes an artwork but already owns a better example by the same artist, he walks away. He won't take a work home unless he and his wife, Gael Neeson, are ready to live with it now. Under his rules, he's collected such masters as Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Cy Twombly. Five years ago, Mr. Edlis, now 87, famously sold one of his Andy Warhols, "Turquoise Marilyn," to hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen for $80 million. On the heels of Mr. Edlis's recent $10 million gift to Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, where he sits on the board, he agreed to discuss his collection. Below, an edited transcript.

"I grew up in Vienna. My parents had zero interest in visual art—they loved music—and my sister wrote about Nordic sagas, so nobody really noticed when I started collecting stamps. I was 15 when we came to the U.S. in 1941. I didn't set out to be a collector, but in my early 20s I saw this article in Fortune about Pablo Picasso, and I cut out all the images in it and put them on my wall.

When I started buying art in the 1970s, my greatest school was actually the auction houses. Abstract Expressionism was still the thing back then, but I preferred Pop. Still do. In our bedroom, all the works are by Roy Lichtenstein. He's like a breath of fresh air to me.

Jeremy Lawson
Collector Stefan Edlis and his wife, Gael Neeson.

We also have six pieces by conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, including this untitled sculpture of a donkey sitting on its haunches like a dog. It's a nod to Goya's donkey etchings. Is Cattelan a jokester? Is he a fraud? I like asking those questions.

I'd like to buy more work by Katharina Fritsch: she makes these gigantic black sculptures of rats—but she does all her own work, so she's got a slow output. Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst have the right formula; they have assistants to help them out. Hollywood producers don't act in their own movies, after all. We have an early 1990s shelf of medical instruments by Damien that I really like. Everything he deals with explores life and death. Will he continue to do good work? Doesn't matter; his artistic importance is already settled.

The most recent artist I've added is Ugo Rondinone. I saw his white waxy trees at the Venice Biennale in 2007. He likes to play with light and weight. Overall, though, I try to stay skeptical: A hedge-fund guy once told me his analysts can really only track 35 stocks at a time, so I try to stick to 35 artists. Sometimes I edge up to 40."

A version of this article appeared July 14, 2012, on page C14 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Strict Rules to Buy Rule-Breaking Art.