Raymond and Laura Wielgus began acquiring art from Africa, the South Pacific, and the Pre-Columbian Americas in the 1950s, and over the next twenty years they assembled a group of objects that became known as one of the premier private collections in the United States. Through their friendship with Roy Sieber, who taught African art history at Indiana University for many years, they became acquainted with the IU Art Museum and, in 1990, they committed not only their entire collection to the museum but also the financial resources that will enable the creation of a curatorial endowment. In recognition of this extraordinary generosity, the museum has named the gallery housing its collection of the art of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in their honor.

Native Midwesterners, the Wielguses spent their professional lives in Chicago, where Laura was a pediatric nurse and nursing instructor and Raymond founded Wielgus Product Models, a business producing prototype models for design organizations and industry. In 1970, they retired and moved to Tucson. Though Laura died in 2003, Raymond remains there, where other private collectors, museums, and dealers continue to call upon his legendary connoisseurship skills and expertise.