Categories
Art Curatorial

#AskACurator Day 2020

Woman in short hair and glasses talking to a small group of people about art
Ariel Pate, assistant curator of photography, giving a gallery talk in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts. Photo by Kat Schleicher.

On Wednesday, September 16, we invited the Museum’s social media followers to ask the curators anything—and they delivered! Check out some of the questions and responses below.

Categories
American Art Collection Curatorial Modern

Loïs Mailou Jones and “The Ascent of Ethiopia”

Egyptian face in the foreground with a group of people climbing a hill to the city
Lois Mailou Jones, The Ascent of Ethiopia, 1932. Oil on canvas. 23 1/2 × 17 1/4 in. Purchase, African American Art Acquisition Fund, matching funds from Suzanne and Richard Pieper, with additional support from Arthur and Dorothy Nelle Sanders, M1993.191. Photo by John R. Glembin. © Lois Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust
Lois Mailou Jones, The Ascent of Ethiopia, 1932. Oil on canvas. 23 1/2 × 17 1/4 in. Purchase, African American Art Acquisition Fund, matching funds from Suzanne and Richard Pieper, with additional support from Arthur and Dorothy Nelle Sanders, M1993.191. Photo by John R. Glembin. © Lois Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust
Lois Mailou Jones, The Ascent of Ethiopia, 1932 (detail). Oil on canvas. 23 1/2 × 17 1/4 in. Purchase, African American Art Acquisition Fund, matching funds from Suzanne and Richard Pieper, with additional support from Arthur and Dorothy Nelle Sanders, M1993.191. Photo by John R. Glembin. © Lois Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust

The artistic talent of Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998) was recognized at an early age. She received a wide range of encouragement, including scholarships to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, in her native Boston, and after graduating with honors, she assumed teaching was a likely next step. But, in what was the first of several rejections in an openly racist society, she was told to go south and help “her people.”

Categories
American Art Collection Collection Reflection Curatorial

Collection Reflection: Curator Brandon Ruud on Severin Roesen

Man talking to the camera in his home office

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.

Categories
Art Collection Collection Reflection Curatorial Photography and Media Arts

Collection Reflection: Curator Lisa Sutcliffe on John Houck

Two glass jars, one with paint and one with water and a brush
John Houck, First Set, 2015 (detail). Inkjet print. Image and sheet: 21 1/2 × 27 1/2 in. (54.61 × 69.85 cm). Purchase, with funds in memory of Betty Croasdaile and John E. Julien, M2016.76. Photo courtesy of On Stellar Rays, New York, New York. © John Houck
Two glass jars, one with paint and one with water and a brush
John Houck, First Set, 2015 (detail). Inkjet print. Image and sheet: 21 1/2 × 27 1/2 in. (54.61 × 69.85 cm). Purchase, with funds in memory of Betty Croasdaile and John E. Julien, M2016.76. Photo courtesy of On Stellar Rays, New York, New York. © John Houck

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.

Categories
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 Collection Reflection Curatorial European

Collection Reflection: Curator Tanya Paul on Jan van Os

Multi-colored flowers overflowing in vase
Jan van Os (Dutch, 1744–1808), Flowers in Terra-cotta Vase, after 1780 (detail). Oil on panel, 35 1/8 × 27 5/8 in. (89.22 × 70.17 cm). Layton Art Collection Inc., Gift of Frederick Layton L111 Photo by John R. Glembin

A museum’s collection is, by its very nature, carefully organized, its objects categorized by geographic origin, medium, chronology, and other defining characteristics. However, works of art have many qualities that defy these traditional institutional divisions. Through a series of videos, we will examine these broader elements, seeking commonalities and new ways of connecting the works in the Museum’s collection. 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. 

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.

Categories
Art Behind the Scenes Collection Curatorial

The Curators’ Game: Collection Rotation

Open sea under a gray and blue sky
Milwaukee Art Museum Purchase, Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation Acquisition Fund M2001.154 Photo by John R. Glembin
Open sea under a gray and blue sky
Milwaukee Art Museum Purchase, Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation Acquisition Fund M2001.154. Photo by John R. Glembin

What happens when a group of curators following the Safer at Home order plays a game with works from the Museum’s collection? You’re about to find out.

Categories
Art Collection Curatorial European Exhibitions Prints and Drawings

From the Collection: An Illuminated Manuscript

French, Leaf from a Liturgical Psalter, early 14th century. Tempera, ink, and gold leaf on parchment. 6 3/8 × 4 7/16 in. (16.19 × 11.27 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Paula Uihlein M1932.108. Photo credit: John R. Glembin
French, Leaf from a Liturgical Psalter, early 14th century. Tempera, ink, and gold leaf on parchment. 6 3/8 × 4 7/16 in. (16.19 × 11.27 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Paula Uihlein M1932.108. Photo credit: John R. Glembin
French, Leaf from a Liturgical Psalter, early 14th century (detail). Tempera, ink, and gold leaf on parchment. 6 3/8 × 4 7/16 in. (16.19 × 11.27 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Paula Uihlein M1932.108. Photo credit: John R. Glembin

Before the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, books were handwritten. Imagine…every time a copy of a text needed to be made, someone had to do it painstakingly by hand. In our world of quick reproductions and the ease of hitting “print”, this can be hard to believe!

The exhibition The Art of Devotion: Illuminated Manuscripts from Local Collections, on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum through June 16, 2019, aims to provide an introduction to these handwritten texts—called manuscripts—that were made in the middle ages and early Renaissance. A good number of those manuscripts are also illuminated, or decorated with gold, silver, and bright colors that make them literally look like they shine from within.

Categories
20th and 21st Century Design Art Collection Curatorial

20th-Century Tools for Measuring Time and Bodies

Isamu Noguchi for Measured Time, Inc., Clock and Kitchen Timer, ca. 1932 (detail). Bakelite, metal, glass, and painted metal. Gift from the George R. Kravis II Collection M2018.246. Photo: Sotheby’s, © Sotheby’s, Inc. 2016, © 2017 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Isamu Noguchi for Measured Time, Inc., Clock and Kitchen Timer, ca. 1932. Bakelite, metal, glass, and painted metal. Gift from the George R. Kravis II Collection M2018.246. Photo: Sotheby’s, © Sotheby’s, Inc. 2016, © 2017 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Isamu Noguchi for Measured Time, Inc., Clock and Kitchen Timer, ca. 1932. Bakelite, metal, glass, and painted metal. Gift from the George R. Kravis II Collection M2018.246. Photo: Sotheby’s, © Sotheby’s, Inc. 2016, © 2017 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Clocks, calculators, measuring tapes, and scales—tools for measurement and calculation have long been important for people to accomplish tasks at work, school, and home. A new display in the 20th- and 21st-Century Design Galleries considers the role designers played in shaping such devices in the twentieth century, with examples from the 1920s-1980s. On one hand, these objects demonstrate how many designers aimed to make tools that are simple to use and easy to read, such as the streamlined kitchen clock and timer that Isamu Noguchi designed for Measured Time, Inc. in the early 1930s. At the same time, these designs bring to light how measurement and calculation have been closely linked to the human body in the twentieth century, as this post explores.