Category: Behind the Scenes

The Making of an Exhibition Store

Post author By Donele Pettit-Mieding
Post date February 15, 2012
No Comments on The Making of an Exhibition Store

If you’ve read curator Mel Buchanan’s posts Painting the Gallery Walls or Layers of Exhibition Paint, you already have a general sense of how an exhibition physically comes together. A lot of those same processes apply to the execution of an exhibition store, as well.

While Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper was still in full swing, Director of Retail Operations Karen McNeely and Store Manager Jeanne Tripi met with the Museum’s Exhibition Designer John Irion to discuss the dimensions and the colors of the Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection exhibition store. In fact, the Impressionism store and the Accidental Genius store are located in the exact same space–just the configuration of the walls has shifted.

Tags Accidental Genius, Behind the Scenes, Museum Store

Art Behind the Scenes Museum Buildings

A Beautiful Friendship: The Museum Store Welcomes Milwaukee Artist Chrisanne Robertson

Post author By Donele Pettit-Mieding
Post date January 18, 2012
1 Comment on A Beautiful Friendship: The Museum Store Welcomes Milwaukee Artist Chrisanne Robertson

Chrisanne Robertson's illustration in the Museum Store. Photo by the author — Chrisanne Robertson’s illustration in the Museum Store. Photo by the author.

This winter, the Art Museum Store has had the good fortune to forge a new and wonderful relationship with an exciting Milwaukee artist, Chrisanne Robertson.

Tags Chrisanne Robertson, Christmas, Holidays, Museum Store, ornaments

Art Behind the Scenes

What typeface is the Milwaukee Art Museum?

Post author By Mel Buchanan
Post date December 16, 2011
3 Comments on What typeface is the Milwaukee Art Museum?

"Milwaukee Art Museum" in various sizes of the Weiss font.

A sense of competition led me to learn a little more about typography this week. What started as a challenge from a friend to best his score on the wonderful online Kern Type: The Kerning Game, became an interest in examining the typefaces, or fonts, that surround me here at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

The Museum has a specific graphic identity that unites our signage, publications, website, and even the circular stickers visitors wear in the galleries. Our graphic design team of Leslie Boll, Sierra Korthof, and Brenda Neigbauer make certain that all our printed materials look snazzy and unique, but also that they incorporate identifying elements, like our specific shade of blue and the same fonts. Part of their responsibility is to make everything produced by the Museum have the Museum branded look.

I was curious about the names and history of the fonts that I see in the Museum’s galleries and billboards, so I met with the design team about typefaces they use to create the Milwaukee Art Museum identity.

If you loved the documentary Helvetica, you would have loved our conversation.

Tags Design, typography

Behind the Scenes Library/Archives

Connecting Orson Welles to the Milwaukee Art Institute

Post author By Heather Winter
Post date November 22, 2011
2 Comments on Connecting Orson Welles to the Milwaukee Art Institute

Orson Welles. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection. Reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-54231

Born on May 6, 1915 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Academy Award-winning filmmaker (George) Orson Welles’ childhood was a Hollywood story of its own.

His father, Richard Head Welles, was a successful inventor and businessman who made a fortune inventing a carbide bicycle lamp. His mother, Beatrice Ives, was an accomplished pianist and spoken word performer. By the age of six, his parents were separated and Welles moved back to Chicago with Beatrice where she had family. Not long after they arrived in Chicago, however, his beloved mother would die of jaundice when Welles was just nine years old. His father, losing his battle with alcohol, would die when Welles was only 15.

In the wake of Ives’ death, Dudley Crafts Watson (1885-1972), a native of Wisconsin and a cousin of Beatrice Ives, became Welles’ guardian in Chicago. Watson, a vocal advocate for the arts, was the very first director of the Milwaukee Art Institute–which was renamed from the Milwaukee Art Society shortly after Watson’s arrival, and is known today as the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Tags Beatrice Ives, Dudley Crafts Watson, Library/Archives, Orson Welles

Behind the Scenes Exhibitions

Behind the Scenes: The Music of the “Wings”

Post author By Chelsea Emelie Kelly
Post date November 8, 2011
1 Comment on Behind the Scenes: The Music of the “Wings”

Picture this: You’re watching the wings open on the Museum’s Quadracci Pavilion and you realize you hear music… ever wonder who is behind its creation? I have! The answer is the talented Kris Martinez, Interactive Designer at the Museum. Below, straight from Kris, is everything you ever wanted to know about the music of the Museum.

Tags "The Wings", Behind the Scenes, European Design Since 1985, Frank Lloyd Wright, Impressionism, Music, Quadracci Pavilion, Santiago Calatrava, Special Exhibitions, Summer of CHINA

20th and 21st Century Design Art Behind the Scenes Collection Curatorial

From Museum Storage–Wiener Werkstätte Vase

Post author By Mel Buchanan
Post date November 4, 2011
1 Comment on From Museum Storage–Wiener Werkstätte Vase

Hilda Jesser (Austrian, 1894–1985), for Wiener Werkstätte, Vase, ca. 1921. Hand-painted earthenware, 9 1/4 x 3 3/8 in. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Daniel Morris and Denis Gallion, Historical Design, New York City, M2002.104. Photo by John R. Glembin.

I’ve just learned that Hilda Jesser could design anything.

Correction: I’ve just learned who Hilda Jesser was.

To back up, I should explain that I often use this blog as an excuse to explore something in the Museum’s collection that I should know more about. This colorful ceramic vase is charming, but I’ve never selected it to go on view in the galleries because I wasn’t quite certain how to explain it.

Thanks to the markings on its base and the curatorial cataloging records here at the Museum, I knew that the vase was designed by Hilda Jesser while at the Wiener Werkstätte sometime around 1921.

But it doesn’t look anything like my preconceived notion of what Wiener Werkstätte ceramic designs would look like, so how could I select it to represent that influential moment in modern design history?

It was time to find out more.

Tags Ceramics, Dagobert Peche, Decorative Arts, Design, From Museum Storage, From the Collection, Hilda Jesser, Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, Wiener Werkstatte

American Art Behind the Scenes Collection

Who’s That Girl: Wisconsin Edition

Post author By Chelsea Emelie Kelly
Post date October 14, 2011
4 Comments on Who’s That Girl: Wisconsin Edition

Nana Kennedy with her portrait by Lester Bentley — Lester W. Bentley (American, 1908-1972), *Nana*, 1939. Oil on masonite. Milwaukee Art Museum, Loan to Layton from Milwaukee Public Museum. Allocated to MPM by Federal Works Agency, Works Progress Administration. Photograph by Dick Kennedy

Nana Kennedy with Lester W. Bentley (American, 1908-1972). Nana, 1939. Oil on masonite. Milwaukee Art Museum, Loan to Layton from Milwaukee Public Museum. Allocated to MPM by Federal Works Agency, Works Progress Administration. Photograph by Dick Kennedy

Every so often, Museum staff gets an email or learns a story that connects the art in our collection with our community. These might be far-away communities, as in the case of the English ancestors of Miss Frances Lee, or it might be close by here in Milwaukee.

Tags Behind the Scenes, Milwaukee, painting, wisconsin, Works Progress Administration, Works Projects Administration

Behind the Scenes Education

Download the Kohl’s Art Generation iPod Touch App!

Post author By Chelsea Emelie Kelly
Post date September 11, 2011
1 Comment on Download the Kohl’s Art Generation iPod Touch App!

I am so excited to announce that the Kohl’s Art Generation Family iPod Touch Tour is now a free, downloadable app from the iTunes store!

Tags iPod Touch Tour, Kohl's Art Generation, Technology

Art Behind the Scenes Museum Store

A Simple Translation from Museum Artwork to Museum Keepsake

Post author By Donele Pettit-Mieding
Post date August 18, 2011
5 Comments on A Simple Translation from Museum Artwork to Museum Keepsake

The Museum Store has a dedicated staff person whose primary responsibility is “Product Development.”

Julia Jackson is the Museum Store’s creative brain-power and organizational manager behind items like the Roy Lichtenstein Crying Girl V-neck T-shirt (I get so many complements when I wear mine and it’s really soft, too!) and the Calatrava-inspired “Wings” earrings that I love.

Every time you pour coffee into your Edmund Tarbell’s Three Sisters mug or admire Bastien-LePage’s Woodgatherer on a poster on your wall, you can thank Julia!

Here is a simplified breakdown of Julia’s design and organization process:

Tags Abbott Handerson Thayer, ARS, Edmund Charles Tarbell, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Museum Store, Roy Lichtenstein, Summer of CHINA

Behind the Scenes Education

Help Harmony Blossom: Art Xpress 2011

Post author By Chelsea Emelie Kelly
Post date August 5, 2011
2 Comments on Help Harmony Blossom: Art Xpress 2011

Araceli puts finishing touches on her panel for the mural.

This summer, fourteen teens from all around the Milwaukee area came together for three packed weeks with a hefty task: to create a mural for the side of a Milwaukee County Transit System bus that would address an important issue in the community, inspired by themes in the Museum’s The Emperor’s Private Paradise exhibition of Chinese art.

Tags Art Xpress, Museum education, Summer of CHINA, Teen Programs