Sharon and Schuyler Seager visit the Museum on August 5, 2013. Photo by the author.
30 Encounters with 30 Americans is a ten week blog series showcasing the perspectives of thirty visitors to the Milwaukee Art Museum’s 30 Americans exhibition (June 14 – September 8, 2013).
Read about the experiences of these visitors–from couples to families, from students to scholars–and see how their thoughts compare to your own. What are visitors saying about this dynamic exhibition of paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, video, and more made by African American artists since 1970?
This week’s 30 Encounters blog post features visitors that all shared international views of the Museum’s 30 Americans exhibition.
Read about the experiences of these visitors–from couples to families, from students to scholars–and see how their thoughts compare to your own. What are visitors saying about this dynamic exhibition of paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, video, and more made by African American artists since 1970?
From the well crafted thoughts of educators to the developing impressions of young students, this week’s 30 Encounters with 30 Americans is rich with engaging perspectives.
Christopher McIntyre and Robert Burns visit the Museum on July 24, 2013. Photo by the author.
30 Encounters with 30 Americans is a ten week blog series showcasing the perspectives of thirty visitors to the Milwaukee Art Museum’s 30 Americans exhibition (June 14 – September 8, 2013).
Read about the experiences of these visitors–from couples to families, from students to scholars–and see how their thoughts compare to your own. What are visitors saying about this dynamic exhibition of paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, video, and more made by African American artists since 1970?
Ranging from a Wisconsin 30 artist to a young woman visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum for the first time, this week’s conversations are as marvelously varied as the parcipants.
Anthony and Alyssa Neff visiting the Museum, July 12, 2013. Photo by the author.
30 Encounters with 30 Americans is a ten week blog series showcasing the perspectives of thirty visitors to the Milwaukee Art Museum’s 30 Americans exhibition (June 14 – September 8, 2013).
Read about the experiences of these visitors–from couples to families, from students to scholars–and see how their thoughts compare to your own. What are visitors saying about this dynamic exhibition of paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, video, and more made by African American artists since 1970?
From a husband and wife married nearly fifty years to a couple recently engaged, this week’s three conversations are all about pair experiences at the 30 Americans exhibition.
Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory (Sèvres, France, established in 1756), painted by Denis Levé (French, active 1754–1805). Covered Chestnut Bowl and Stand (marronière), 1757–58. Soft paste porcelain, vert ground color, polychrome enamels, and gilding tureen. Bequest of Mrs. Arthur J. Riebs given in memory of her father C.W. George Everhart, and her mother Lillian Boynton Everhart. Photo credit John R. Glembin
What do you know about chestnuts? You might think of the opening lines of The Christmas Song (“chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”). The song is a sure sign that Christmas is coming, but how many of us have actually eaten a chestnut?
For thousands of years, chestnuts have been a nourishing food around the world. They can be eaten raw, dried, boiled, baked, and roasted, or even ground into flour. The ancient Greeks and Romans ate chestnuts. Roasted ones could be found for sale on the streets of Rome in the 1500’s and in America in the early 20th century; you can still find them offered by street vendors in countries such as China, the Philippines, Japan, and Turkey, and in Europe during the winter. (They are less familiar in the United States today because of chestnut blight, a fungus that killed off the chestnut trees in America during the early 20th century.)
But our subject today is the chestnut in France–18th century France, to be specific.
As you may know from reading Chelsea Kelly’s last blog post, the Milwaukee Art Museum is celebrating its 125th anniversary–-commemorating the big year with three exhibitions. The Layton Art Collection: 1888-2013 is the Chipstone Foundation’s contribution to this great celebration.
The exhibition, open through the end of the year, is located in the Museum’s lower level. It tells the story of the Layton Art Collection, and is divided into three parts: Frederick Layton and the Layton Art Gallery, Charlotte Partridge and Modernism, and American Paintings and Decorative Arts. Each of the sections represents a distinct period in the Layton Art Collection. I will devote one blog post to each period, since each is rich with objects and interesting stories.
If you’ve been in the European galleries in the last few weeks, you’ve probably noticed a dramatic transformation in Gallery 10!
The gallery has been reinstalled as part of the celebrations of the 125th anniversary of the founding of the Layton Art Gallery, which laid the foundation for what would become the Milwaukee Art Museum. We’ve decided to call it Mr. Layton’s Gallery, after Milwaukee philanthropist Frederick Layton, who started it all.
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!
Pin board of a Milwauke Art Museum Curator. Photo by Mel Buchanan.
Although I try very hard not to bring work home with me, sometimes (okay, most of the time) I can’t help it. I just love museums, and so I often find myself thinking about them after 5 p.m.
Something I’ve been mulling over for a while is the use of the word “curate”, and how the phrase has become a buzzword around the world wide web. What does the word “curate” mean in popular language—and more importantly, what does it mean for museum professionals that this word is being re-appropriated?
In the interest of immersing myself in the Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century exhibition (and fulfilling my goal of becoming a tourist in my home state), I have been visiting Wright-designed buildings in Wisconsin over the past few months.
