Top 200 Collectors

Alec Litowitz is the founder and CEO of the Illinois-based asset management firm Magnetar Capital. With a J.D. and M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, Litowitz got his start in the financial world at J.P. Morgan in New York and later the Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group. He’s also an avid sportsman, competing in triathlons. He became the first All-American squash player as an undergrad at MIT.

Jennifer Leischner Litowitz is the creative director of Guildhall Restaurant and serves as the partner/director of the Reimagined Hospitality group, which she coowns with Alec. She is also the director of the Litowitz Family Foundation and serves as a trustee of Northwestern University. She holds a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago.

On the philanthropic front, Litowitzes are major patrons within the Chicago area. In 2017, the couple donated $10 million to Northwestern University, Jennifer’s alma mater, to create the Litowitz Creative Writing Graduate Program, which offers an M.F.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English. (Alec’s parents both completed graduate degrees at Northwestern as well.)

“Now more than ever, it is important for students to develop skills in creative writing and add their voices to those being represented in the literary world,” she said in a statement at the time. “Through this inspired program, Alec and I hope to engage students from all different disciplines and backgrounds in this vital form of expression.”

Within the art world, Jennifer has served on committees at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2022, the Litowitzes supported Nick Cave’s retrospective at the MCA Chicago, to which they lent work, as well as the Chicago iteration of the exhibition “Skin in the Game,” curated by Zoe Lukov.

On the collecting front, they focus on supporting the work of contemporary artists of color, including Cave, Theaster Gates, Jacob Lawrence, Simone Leigh, and others. “It is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to live with the art we collect. Being surrounded by beautiful or thought-provoking pictures and objects keeps our minds engaged and hearts thumping,” the couple told ARTnews in an email interview. “We continue to collect because we enjoy the challenge of trying to understand and appreciate the complex narratives of our human condition through the creative eyes of an artist.”