Category: Art

From the Chipstone Collection—Fecundity Dish

Post author By Claudia Mooney
Post date November 6, 2012
1 Comment on From the Chipstone Collection—Fecundity Dish

Dish, England, 1681. (Chipstone Foundation; Photo Gavin Ashworth)

On the Museum’s Lower Level in the Hidden Dimensions gallery, there is a section on Myth, showcasing objects, such as card tables, that portray mythical figures. There are also several dishes mounted on the wall. A charger featuring the erotic seductress Venus is the subject of this blog post.

The dish in question dates to 1681 and is made of tin-glazed earthenware (also called Delftware). It features a reclining female nude with a child standing on her lap and four more children, or putti, playing behind her. The dish’s border depicts arrangements of fruit, cherries, flowers, masks in relief, and the inscription S/ WM/ 1681. Chargers with this scene are called fecundity dishes and were made in London between 1633 and 1697.

Tags Ceramics, Chipstone Foundation, Michelle Erickson

American Art Collection Curatorial

From the Collection: Wisconsin Crazy Quilt

Post author By Milwaukee Art Museum
Post date November 2, 2012
No Comments on From the Collection: Wisconsin Crazy Quilt

My grandmother made about a dozen quilts in her lifetime and having them around so much as a kid, I sort of took them for granted.

Before I worked at the Museum as an intern, I visited the Milwaukee Art Museum’s exhibition American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection in the summer of 2010. As many exhibitions of material culture tend to do, the display gave me a new appreciation for artforms that had surrounded me my whole life. I saw my grandmother’s craft in a new way, and as someone who just a few years ago mastered sewing on a button, the awe I feel for the craftsmanship is possibly only outdone by the respect I feel for the artistry of quilt making.

Tags American Art, American Quilts, college intern, textiles, Wisconsin art

Art Behind the Scenes Curatorial

Behind the Scenes: Analysis of a Face Jug

Post author By Claudia Mooney
Post date October 15, 2012
1 Comment on Behind the Scenes: Analysis of a Face Jug

Mark Newell and Claudia Mooney collecting empirical data on the face jugs. Photo courtesy of Mark Newell.

The exhibition Face Jugs: Art and Ritual in 19th Century South Carolina, on view this past summer at the Milwaukee Art Museum (and currently on tour through South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia), provided us at Chipstone with a rare hands-on research opportunity.

As you may have read in one of my previous blog posts on Face Jugs, the objects in the exhibition were made by slaves, and later free African Americans, in the Edgefield County of South Carolina from about 1860 to about 1880. Previous scholars posited arguments that connected the face jugs back to Africa, but there was still research to be done in terms of the face jugs’ origin and function.

In addition to conducting our own research, we teamed up with anthropologists, archeologists and historians in order to gain a fuller understanding of the face jugs’ story–and got up close and personal with the objects in the process.

Tags Behind the Scenes, Chipstone Foundation, Exhibitions, Face jugs

Art Collection Curatorial European

Mythology at the Milwaukee Art Museum–Part 2

Post author By Catherine Sawinski
Post date October 2, 2012
1 Comment on Mythology at the Milwaukee Art Museum–Part 2

Corrado Giaquinto (Italian, 1703–1766), The Triumph of Galatea, ca. 1752. Oil on canvas; 33 1/2 x 48 1/2 in. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Myron Laskin M1970.68.2 Photo credit Larry Sanders. — Corrado Giaquinto (Italian, 1703–1766), The Triumph of Galatea, ca. 1752. Detail. Oil on canvas; 33 1/2 x 48 1/2 in. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Myron Laskin M1970.68.2 Photo credit Larry Sanders.

In my August post for the Museum’s blog, Mythology at the Milwaukee Art Museum-Part 1, I focused on some great examples of Classical mythological figures in the Museum’s Collection—hopefully with the result that you will be able to identify those characters the next time you see them.

This month, I am going to explore another aspect of mythology in art. (Don’t worry, we’ll still learn how to identify a myth or two.) But we’ll also see that classical mythology can be both straightforward and convoluted at the same time.

First, let’s start with a basic question: what is “myth”?

There is a lot of scholarship on the definition and meaning of myth in disciplines such as anthropology.

Tags Ancient Art, European art, Mythology

Art Behind the Scenes Curatorial Exhibitions

Making an Exhibition, Part 5: Finally, Enjoying the Gallery

Post author By Mel Buchanan
Post date September 28, 2012
7 Comments on Making an Exhibition, Part 5: Finally, Enjoying the Gallery

Installation shot "Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate." Photo by the author. — Installation shot “Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate.” Photo by the author.

Well, that was a whirl! For any of you that follow these blog posts in a timely manner, you’ll know (and one of you even pointed out to me in a gallery talk!) that I ambitiously scheduled two “Making an Exhibition” blog posts for myself on the week of and week after the Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate exhibition opened.

Mistake. So, here I am, three weeks tardy to my original plans, finding an afternoon to recap the excitement of putting together the exhibition in its final week, celebrating the opening of the exhibition, and then sharing it with tours and reporters.

I am thrilled with how the beautiful artwork and tremendous story unfold in our exhibition. I am happy to report that we had a great crowd at our opening night. And I have been honored to share this story with more than one reporter, who had very lovely things to say about our exhibition in the press.

Here are a few things that happened.

Tags Grete Marks, Marketing/Communications, Press

Art Art News Collection Contemporary

Warhol, Warhol, Everywhere a Warhol

Post author By Chelsea Emelie Kelly
Post date September 20, 2012
No Comments on Warhol, Warhol, Everywhere a Warhol

Everybody loves Andy Warhol! Who isn’t immediately attracted to the bright colors, crisp lines, and repetition in Andy Warhol’s artwork? Not to mention the fact that Warhol himself was such a character, playing with the art world, celebrity, and fame.

One of Warhol’s most iconic images, that of the Campbell’s Soup Can, is now available for mass-market purchase. For 75 cents. That’s right. 75 cents for your very own piece of Andy Warhol art history!

Tags Andy Warhol, Campbell's, Consumerism, Soup

Art Library/Archives

Art Books are Fun, Now Go Play!

Post author By Heather Winter
Post date August 31, 2012
No Comments on Art Books are Fun, Now Go Play!

Vasarely: Plastic Arts of the 20th Century, Vol. II. (Full captions below)

One of the most fascinating (and fun) books in the Museum’s rare book collection is a set of books by the artist Victor Vasarely.

Vasarely’s four-volume set Plastic Arts (1970), which features numerous color plates, foldouts and loose plastic overlays, not only exemplifies his unique approach to art, but equips the viewer with a finite set of colors and forms to play with and manipulate.

See our combinations below.

Tags Art Books, Artist Books, Op Art, Optical Art, Optical Illusion, Victor Vasarely

Art Behind the Scenes Curatorial Exhibitions

Making an Exhibition, Part 4: Storyboards, Design, and Installation

Post author By Mel Buchanan
Post date August 28, 2012
4 Comments on Making an Exhibition, Part 4: Storyboards, Design, and Installation

Pin board of a Milwauke Art Museum Curator. Photo by Mel Buchanan. — A “visual checklist” pinboard at my desk. Photo by the author.

Picking paint colors. Stepping under ladders in closed off galleries. Artfully arranging teacups. All are things I’ve done in the past few weeks, and all are entirely fun perks to a curator’s job. Beyond the fun, what I aim to do in this post is go a little deeper into the process of installing, painting, and arranging an exhibition.

In the first three posts of this series, I’ve addressed steps to developing the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate exhibition (on view September 6, 2012 – January 1, 2013), from idea to loan paperwork to marketing.

The next step of bringing this incredible story and artwork physically to the public were the conversations we had about the design of the gallery, because there are as many ways to display artwork as there are paint colors in the Sherwin-Williams sample book.

Tags Behind the Scenes, curator, exhibition design, Grete Marks, loans, paint

Art Behind the Scenes Curatorial Exhibitions

Making an Exhibition, Part 3: Approvals and Loans and Email and Paperwork

Post author By Mel Buchanan
Post date August 21, 2012
5 Comments on Making an Exhibition, Part 3: Approvals and Loans and Email and Paperwork

"Grete Marks" exhibition committee proposal, front page. — “Grete Marks” exhibition committee formal proposal, front page.

In the first two posts of this series, I’ve addressed the origins of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate exhibition (on view September 6, 2012 – January 1, 2013). The exhibition went from my admiration of a certain artwork I didn’t know well, to years of background research to learn the context and nuance of the artist’s story.

In those steps, I looked at artwork, read about Bauhausian ideas, and traveled to Berlin and London to meet with curators and examine stunning teapots. For the next part of the task of making the exhibition, I mostly sat at a computer in Milwaukee generating forms and writing emails.

An exhibition goes from a curator’s idea to a museum reality through a series of approvals up the chain-of-command. To bring my personal research on Grete Marks into a real Museum exhibition, I first spoke with my curatorial colleagues and the Museum’s Chief Curator about the idea.

Tags Behind the Scenes, curator, Exhibitions, Grete Marks

Art Collection Curatorial European

Mythology at the Milwaukee Art Museum–Part 1

Post author By Catherine Sawinski
Post date August 17, 2012
6 Comments on Mythology at the Milwaukee Art Museum–Part 1

Sofonisba Anguissola (Italian, 1532–1625) The Artist's Sister Minerva Anguissola, ca. 1564 Oil on canvas 33 1/2 x 26 in. (85.09 x 66.04 cm) Layton Art Collection, Gift of the Family of Mrs. Frederick Vogel, Jr. L1952.1 Photo credit P. Richard Eells — Detail of Athena pendant. Sofonisba Anguissola, The Artist’s Sister Minerva Anguissola, ca. 1564. Layton Art Collection. Full image below.

It’s hard to study art and not learn something about classical mythology. The gods and heroes of ancient Greece and Rome are not only prevalent in ancient art (as in the Museum’s two Greek Hydria), but in later periods such as the Renaissance (which saw a “rebirth” of classical antiquity, which you can see in our Orpheus Clock) and the Neoclassical era (a perfect example is Hiram Powers’ Proserpine).

So, for the next two months, I want to take you on a tour of the Museum Collection with mythology as our theme. And what’s fun about myth is that once you learn some of the basics in iconography, or the standard in how figures and stories are depicted, you’ll be able to recognize it in other works at other museums, and even in daily walks around your city or shopping mall.

Tags athena, Atlas, Dutch art, European art, Hercules, mars, Renaissance, venus