Healthy Words Mural by Tippecanoe School. Photo courtesy of Fondé Bridges
As is evident from other blog posts, as well as our partnership with the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Chipstone Foundation strongly believes in collaboration. Chipstone’s latest collaboration is with artist, teacher and native Milwaukeean Fondé Bridges.
Bridges has been an artist in residence in Milwaukee Public Schools, community centers and churches for the past 18 years. Fondé, who’s named after Milwaukee’s Fond Du Lac Avenue, has also created public art projects with students at Fond Du Lac and North, as well as Mitchell Airport.
Screencapture of Breanna W.’s teen programs video.
This coming year will be my third year as Chelsea’s intern, so I’ve definitely come to know my way around the Art Museum and its many programs. I work with Chelsea mostly with the Satellite High School Internship Program, thus I was thrilled to have a hand in some of the prepping and planning for the spring term.
Prior to the start of the spring semester, Chelsea and I did some program brainstorming for the Satellite Program. Most of our conversation was about what the final project would look like for the students. Read more to find out more about the teaching process and view the students’ final project videos!
Installing S. M. S. (Shit Must Stop) Number 4, 1968; note Roy Lichtenstein’s Folded Hat, vinyl hat construction, Purchase, with funds from Kit S. Basquin, George and Angela Jacobi with matching funds from Johnson Controls, and Jacques and Barbara Hussussian. M1995.290. Photo credit Nate Pyper.
William Copley (1919-1996) was an American art entrepreneur who was involved in every facet of the art world at one time or another during his career.
Copley worked as a painter, writer, gallery owner, collector, patron and publisher. He began painting in the early 1920s and identified with the Surrealists.
Surrealism was an art and culture movement that began in the early 1920s and persevered through the 1960s. It had a major influence on abstract expressionism, postmodernism and popular culture. It was founded in Paris by a small group of writers and artists who found that the conscious mind repressed the power of imagination, creating taboos in our culture and guilt in our actions.
S.M.S.1 was an experimental magazine created by Copley during the turbulent year of 1968.
Color Rush AdvertisementWhen the design team was tasked with developing the identity for Color Rush: 75 Years of Color Photography in America, a comprehensive exhibition charting the history of color photography in the United States from 1907 to 1981 and including nearly 200 objects, we knew we had our work cut out for us. The work in Color Rush is robust, ranging from early experimentation to oversaturated mid-century advertisements to the conceptual thrust of the late 1970s. We wondered, how would we create a strong typographical mark that would encompass and speak for such a full and varied exhibition?
Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink. Filed February 17, 1954. Journal Sentinel Archives
Last month, I wrote about the first part of the exhibition The Layton Art Collection: 1888-2013. I introduced the great Milwaukee businessman and art patron Frederick Layton, and touched upon the founding of the Layton Art Gallery. The first section ends with the death of Frederick Layton.
The second section, which is my favorite part in the exhibit, starts with Charlotte Partridge.
Henry Vianden, Landscape with Mountains and River, n.d. Oil on canvas. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Frederick Vogel III on behalf of the family of Louise Pfister Vogel and Fred Vogel, Jr. Photo credit John R. Glembin
Happy birthday, Milwaukee Art Museum! You’re looking pretty good for 125, if we do say so ourselves. To celebrate the Museum’s anniversary, we’ve got a whole lot of stuff going on. From concurrent exhibitions to community days, your 125th is going to go down in style.
Beyond events, though, and (mostly) in seriousness, as part of the 125th Anniversary, I’m excited to share some of the detailed breakouts of the most popular works of art in the Collection! Some of you may remember voting for your favorite artworks in the Kohl’s Art Generation Lab.
Wondering what the people’s choice works were? Check out the breakdown below!
Anthony van Dyck and Studio. Margaret, Lady Tufton, ca. 1632. Oil on canvas. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William D. Vogel. Photo credit John R. Glembin
Recently brought out of the vault for display in Gallery #5 is a portrait of Margaret, Lady Tufton (1636-1687). A beauty of the English court, she was the granddaughter of Edward, 1st Baron Wotton, a diplomat and court official for Queen Elizabeth I.
Margaret is shown in her elegant silk gown (which is actually an informal dress because of the loose, flowing fabric and lack of lace collar and cuffs; it shows a significant amount of bare skin!). She has beautifully arranged curls and wears expensive matched pearls. To accentuate her loveliness, she holds delicate roses in her lap.
When this painting entered the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection in 1956, it was heralded as a masterpiece of the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641). Van Dyck was one of the greatest portrait painters of all time. He influenced generations of later portrait painters, including Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727-1788). Using brilliant brushwork, elegant compositions, and luscious textiles, he gives his subjects an easy aristocratic air while still making it clear that they are beautiful, virtuous, and powerful.
But now the artist of this work is listed as “Anthony van Dyck and Studio.” What does this mean?
Film still: Constructing the dormitory at Taliesin, early 1930s. Milwaukee Art Museum, Institutional Archives.The museum’s archives contain a small but delightful collection of film and videotapes, detailing all sorts of subjects–from small films produced by the museum for various projects and exhibitions over the course of its history, to an odd yet enchanting assortment of documentary and artist-related footage.
But of all the film gems in the archive, my top favorites are two films of very rare footage of the internationally celebrated architect Frank Lloyd Wright which spans the 1930s into the early 1940s. Both films were donated to the museum from the personal collection of Joan Salzstein. She was the granddaughter of Dankmar Adler, one of the renowned architectural duo Adler & Sullivan, who changed Chicago’s skyline at the turn of the 20th century. Wright worked for and studied under Adler, and his granddaughter Joan became a regular visitor to Wright’s home and farm at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, for many years.
“When Democracy Builds”. Milwaukee Art Institute Bulletin. November 1945. Vol. 18, No. 5, Page 1.We owe it to the awakening interest in art matters
and the democratic spirit of the society,
which is attempting to make the gallery
a valuable asset to every citizen and
to inculcate an appreciation of its offerings.
–Samuel O. Buckner, President, Milwaukee Art Institute. “Art Gallery Rapidly Growing in Popularity.” Free Press, Dec 23, 1913
In 2013, the Milwaukee Art Museum will celebrate its 125th anniversary. Since 1888, the Museum has featured over 3,600 exhibitions, acquired 30,000+ objects, and published hundreds of exhibition and Collection catalogues. The Museum has been instrumental in setting national standards for excellence in art education, and has also erected visionary architecture. An exciting 125 years indeed!
Want to know what energizes an art museum staff, beyond knowing that we share a world-class art collection with almost 400,000 people a year? Believe it or not, for the Milwaukee Art Museum staff it was a coloring contest.
Of course, it helps when that coloring contest is both inspired by and judged by Wisconsin artist Reginald Baylor. (And also, when the prize involves a free lunch with the artist.)
