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Art Art News Collection Curatorial Membership Prints and Drawings

Happy 40th Anniversary Print Forum

People riding into a party on horseback
Warrington Colescott, I Ride with the Blue Riders. We Visit die Brücke Picnic and Enjoy a Bratwurst, Reminding Me of Summer in Milwaukee, from the portfolio My German Trip, 1992. Color soft-ground etching, spit bite bitumen aquatint, and color relief; plate: 11 13/16 × 13 7/8 in., sheet: 14 11/16 × 20 in. Purchase with funds from Print Forum, M2006.38.9. Photo by Michael Tropea. © Warrington Colescott
People riding into a party on horseback
Bratwurst, Reminding Me of Summer in Milwaukee, from the portfolio My German Trip, 1992. Color soft-ground etching, spit bite bitumen aquatint, and color relief; plate: 11 13/16 × 13 7/8 in., sheet: 14 11/16 × 20 in. Purchase with funds from Print Forum, M2006.38.9. Photo by Michael Tropea. © Warrington Colescott

Nearly forty years ago, in 1981, a group of twelve Museum Members with an interest in prints and drawings established Print Forum. George Evans and Kent Anderson served as the group’s first president and vice-president, respectively. One of the Museum’s nine currently active support groups, Print Forum is among the longest standing.

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Art Collection Collection Reflection Curatorial Prints and Drawings

Collection Reflection: Associate Curator Nikki Otten on Odilon Redon

Multi-colored flowers in a blue vase
Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916), Vase of Flowers, 1900/16 (detail). Pastel on paper. 35 × 28 in. (88.9 × 71.12 cm). Purchase, Marjorie Tiefenthaler Bequest and partial gift of Louise Uihlein Snell Fund of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation M1996.37. Photo by Larry Sanders

We invite you to join us as each curator focuses on a single work of art, exploring both that object and how the object speaks to the collection as a whole, as well as to the chosen theme in particular.

In this first iteration, we examine the notion of still life as it has been treated in artwork across time.

Categories
Art Collection Curatorial Prints and Drawings

Peasants and Preservation: The Barbizon School Artists and the Struggle for Fontainebleau Forest

Jean-François Millet, The Shepherdess—large plate, 1862(detail). Etching. Maurice and Esther Leah Ritz Collection, M2004.245. Photo by Efraim Lev-er.
Jean-François Millet, The Shepherdess—large plate, 1862. Etching. Maurice and Esther Leah Ritz Collection, M2004.245. Photo by Efraim Lev-er.

Upon first glance, The Shepherdess by Jean-François Millet seems to represent a purely bucolic scene in rural France. Millet completed the etching in 1862, and in it, we see a woman knitting while her sheep graze in a field in the distance. She wears a cape, a bonnet, and sabots—wooden shoes associated with the lower classes in France. Her face is obscured by the shade of the trees growing behind the boulder where she rests. On her right, a dog keeps watch over the sheep. A sense of purposeful stillness pervades the scene. Despite the tranquility of the image, however, the setting and activities it depicts are closely related to ecological debates that took place in French society between the 1830s and 1870s. One such debate centered on Fontainebleau Forest.