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.
Artist Philomé Obin and his son, Antoine, worked together to complete this painting. In the work, you can see Philomé on the left, Antoine on the right, and Philomé’s brother, Sénéque, who was also an artist, in the center. They are sitting in front of the Centre d’Art in their hometown of Cap-Haïtien. Philomé opened this school and gallery as a branch of the Centre d’Art in Port Au Prince, Haiti.
When it comes to materials, many artists are resourceful. To create his sculptures, Haitian blacksmith Georges Liautaud (1899–1991) used discarded steel drums that were left on the island. Liautaud cut and flattened the round drums, used fire to clean off the oil and dirt, and drew designs on the metal in preparation for sculpting. He then cut, punched holes in, and embossed (or pushed into the metal to create raised marks) the material. He was the first artist to create sculptures in this way. Liautaud taught this technique to many other blacksmiths and artists in Haiti. Today, it is still one of the country’s most popular art forms.
“Have you ever walked past Sunny #4 and not smiled?” That was the question Mrs. Kari Hahm, a teacher at Zion Lutheran School, posed to the Museum when she recently shared the chalk drawings her students made, at home, of Alex Katz’s Sunny #4.
Do you need a place to keep all your creative ideas? Sketchbooks are a great option. Their pages can hold a jumble of doodles, notes, finished works of art—or all of the above! Artists often use their sketchbooks to work out big ideas and practice their drawings. Follow the steps below to create your own sketchbook!
On the first Monday in December, the Milwaukee Art Museum opens its doors to a passionate group of young people from the greater Milwaukee area. Dedicated educators and organizers prepare to greet more than 500 students in grades 3 through 12 who have come to be inspired by the thousands of works of art and express themselves through writing and drawing. This annual event is called the Art of Writing Young Authors and Artists Conference.
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.
American artist Al Held (1928–2005) was an abstract painter, most famous for his large-scale, geometric works. His paintings are full of circles, squares, cubes, and other geometric shapes and forms that overlap. In the painting below, he used a masking technique to create lines with sharp edges. He masked (covered) the white sections with tape and painted the remaining sections black.
Here’s how you can make your own geometric painting using materials you may already have at home:
As we wait to welcome you back to the Museum, work continues behind the scenes. In the conservation department, we prepare for many different disaster scenarios that might potentially strike our collection. Fire, flood, insect infestations, mold, and even terrorism are all covered in the Museum’s Emergency Preparedness Plan; COVID-19 and Wisconsin’s Safer at Home order are not. Having the Museum closed to the public for an extended period presented us with an entirely new set of challenges.
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.