Category: Collection

Welcoming “Miss Blanche” into the Design Collection

Post author By Shoshana Resnikoff
Post date June 14, 2024
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Detail of Miss Blanche by Shiro Kuramata

On the heels of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s annual Art in Bloom celebration, a new kind of flower is blooming in the design collection galleries: the Miss Blanche chair created by Shiro Kuramata. It is one of the final works by Kuramata, the legendary designer who brought Japanese design onto the global stage with his expressive and conceptual objects. An homage to Blanche DuBoise, the heroine of Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire, the chair exemplifies his poetic approach to the everyday and his longstanding engagement with materiality. Its presence in the galleries expands the Museum’s narratives around Japanese design and provides a new, exciting context to the beloved Carlton bookcase by Ettore Sottsass.

20th and 21st Century Design Art

20th-Century Silver: An Unexpected Medium for Modernism

Post author By Shoshana Resnikoff
Post date April 4, 2024
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Alongside many other strengths, the Milwaukee Art Museum boasts a remarkable collection of modern American silver. To celebrate these holdings, we wanted to reflect on a few of the significant 20th-century works here at the Museum.

Silversmithing has a long history in the United States, but in the 20th century it emerged as an unexpected medium for the exploration of modern forms and lines. Each an important part of the story of modern silver in the United States, the works featured below express how different designers related to and understood the goals of modernism, and how they worked through a range of ideas around production, craftsmanship, and aesthetics. Some of these objects are currently on view while others will make future appearances in permanent galleries or exhibitions.

20th and 21st Century Design Art

A Closer Look: Ruth Asawa’s Milwaukee Connection

Post author By Shoshana Resnikoff
Post date March 14, 2024

The pioneering sculptor, educator, and arts activist Ruth Asawa spent most of her life in California, but she has a surprising—and significant—connection to Wisconsin and the city of Milwaukee. A new work acquired in 2020 and recently installed in the 20th- and 21st-Century Design Galleries represents Asawa’s time in the city and speaks to its impact on this influential artist and her career.

Art European

From the Collection: “Orpheus” and Its Mysterious Origins

Post author By Catherine Sawinski
Post date October 9, 2023
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Through January 28, 2024, Milwaukee Art Museum visitors have the opportunity to explore an exquisite collection of artworks on view in Art, Life, Legacy: Northern European Paintings in the Collection of Isabel and Alfred Bader. The 75 paintings presented in the exhibition were assembled while the Baders, longtime Museum patrons and supporters, were living in Milwaukee. They not only gave artworks to the Museum—many of which are on view in the collection galleries—but were formative in the development of the European art program at the Museum.

One such artwork is the painting Orpheus by Adriaen van Nieulandt the Younger, on view in gallery S106. The painting shows a popular mythological scene, and closer inspection of the work reveals the artwork’s interesting origins.

Tags European art, From the Collection

Art European

Granida and Daifilo: Celebrating Dutch Theater in the Collection of Alfred Bader

Post author By Catherine Sawinski
Post date September 21, 2023
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Opening September 29 at the Milwaukee Art Museum is Art, Life, Legacy: Northern European Paintings in the Collection of Isabel and Alfred Bader. The 75 paintings presented in the exhibition were assembled while the Baders, longtime Museum patrons and supporters, were living in Milwaukee. They not only gave artworks to the Museum—many of which are on view in the collection galleries—but were formative in the development of the European art program at the Museum.

In anticipation of the exhibition, today we’ll look at two paintings with the same subject that passed through Alfred Bader’s hands: one is on view in the Museum’s collection galleries and the other is in the exhibition.

Art Behind the Scenes Contemporary

Conserving “The Suitcase”

For more than two years, the conservation team at the Milwaukee Art Museum has been collaborating with other experts to conserve Robert Gober’s Untitled installation so it can return to the galleries and again immerse viewers in an animated, watery scene, as the artist originally intended. When visitors peer inside the suitcase, they often think the watery tableau is created by a screen. The truth is much more exciting! What you see is a sculpted pool filled with gently lapping water, silicone seaweed, and wax limbs. But this installation, like all artwork, is not inert. Gober made the work in 1997, and over the course of 26 years, mechanical elements became worn and algae grew.

20th and 21st Century Design Exhibitions Library/Archives

Paging Through the Publications on View in “Scandinavian Design and the United States”

Post author By Anthony Morgano
Post date March 15, 2023
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Alongside the brightly colored Dala horses, large-scale woven artworks, and fabulous furniture featured in the Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890–1980 exhibition are eight publications from the Milwaukee Art Museum Research Center—two magazines, an exhibition catalogue, three books, a beautiful serigraph, and an interactive ergonomics manual.

Why, you may be asking, are these publications on display in an exhibition with works of art and design?

American Art Collection Contemporary

American Artworks Newly on View

Post author By Milwaukee Art Museum
Post date July 27, 2022
1 Comment on American Artworks Newly on View

True or false: the Museum’s collection galleries always stay the same?

Tags American Art

Art Behind the Scenes Collection Reflection Curatorial European

Questions of Provenance: Recent Discoveries: “Wedding Procession in the Tyrol” by Wilhelm Ludwig Friedrich Riefstahl

Wilhelm Ludwig Friedrich Riefstahl (German, 1827–1888), *Wedding Procession in Tyrol* (detail), ca. 1866. Oil on canvas. Gift of the René von Schleinitz Foundation, M1962.90.

Periodically in the past, the blog has featured a series of posts called “Questions of Provenance,” which discussed issues related to provenance, or the history of ownership of a work of art. Over the next few months, this series will continue with posts highlighting recent research into works in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection. In case you missed it, the first one was published in January.

The last story I shared was about an accidental discovery related to the provenance of the painting Dance Under the Linden Tree (1881) by Ludwig Knaus. Today, I’m going to share a similar surprise discovery, about Wedding Procession in the Tyrol by Wilhelm Ludwig Friedrich Riefstahl (German, 1827–1888).

Art Contemporary Education Spotlight Sessions

Spotlight Sessions: “Nobody’s Watching” by Klassik

Post author By Amy Kirschke
Post date March 31, 2022
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Man with headphones and a mic standing in front of Untitled Anxious Audience by Rashid Johnson — Local artist Klassik performing in front of *Untitled Anxious Audience* (detail), 2017, by Rashid Johnson (American, b. 1977). Ceramic tile, soap, and wax. 95 1/2 × 159 × 2 1/2 in. Purchase, with funds from Mark and Debbie Attanasio, Marianne and Sheldon Lubar, Joanne Murphy, the African American Art Alliance, and the Modern and Contemporary Art Deaccession Funds, M2017.60 © Rashid Johnson

The Milwaukee Art Museum is excited to introduce Spotlight Sessions, a virtual series featuring an artist or local luminary interpreting or responding to an artwork in the collection. This series captures the unique perspective an artist brings to either their own or another’s work of art, broadening the experience of a painting, sculpture, or other selected work. Over the next three years, six local and visiting artists will be featured in this series. Viewers will have a range of opportunities to learn about and engage with Spotlight Sessions, including on the website, through social media, and at in-person events.