Categories
Art Behind the Scenes Collection Curatorial Prints and Drawings

From the Collection–Winter in Color

View of "Winter in Color" Mezzanine Installation. Photo by Chelsea Kelly
View of “Winter in Color” Mezzanine Installation. Photo by Chelsea Kelly
Tired of winter yet? Wait, it’s February in Wisconsin–that’s probably a silly question. Even if you’ve had enough, the Milwaukee Art Museum’s current display of works on paper from the Collection, Winter in Color, might make you take another look at the season.

Categories
20th and 21st Century Design Art Collection Contemporary Curatorial

Celebrating Chihuly in Wisconsin

Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941) Isola di San Giacomo in Palude Chandelier II, 2000 Blown glass 183 x 86 x 96 diameter in. (464.82 x 218.44 x 243.84 cm) Gift of Suzy B. Ettinger in memory of Sanford J. Ettinger M2001.125 Photo credit John R. Glembin © 2009, Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941), Isola di San Giacomo in Palude Chandelier II, 2000. Blown glass; 183 x 86 x 96 in. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Suzy B. Ettinger in memory of Sanford J. Ettinger. Photo John R. Glembin.© 2013, Dale Chihuly

One cannot walk through the doors of the Milwaukee Art Museum without taking in a colorful burst of Dale Chihuly’s glass artwork. The Museum’s Isola di San Giacomo in Palude Chandelier II (at left) is one of the most popular works in the Museum, located at the entry of the Quadracci Pavilion. Milwaukee’s Suzy B. Ettinger, who was recently featured in a great Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Style article, donated the artwork in 2001 to brighten the Museum’s new white Santiago Calatava-designed addition.

Museum visitors have been posing for photos with it ever since (it even appears snaking behind my own mother in her Facebook profile picture). Chihuly’s universal popularity encourages many museums to place his glass artwork front and center as a cheerful greeting.

In fact, in the almost 50 years since he lived and studied in Wisconsin, no other artist can claim to have brought as much popular attention to American art glass as Dale Chihuly.

This weekend, Wisconsin is celebrating Chihuly’s achievements.

Categories
Behind the Scenes Education Museum Store

Museum Staff Coloring Contest with Reginald Baylor

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.)

Categories
20th and 21st Century Design Art Behind the Scenes Collection Curatorial

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the American Studio Glass Movement

American Studio Glass installation. Photo by the author.

The year 2012 is considered the 50th anniversary of the American Studio Glass movement. The anniversary is being celebrated with exhibitions and events across the country, organized in large part by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass.

The Milwaukee Art Museum has a terrific collection of studio glass, and we were thrilled to be part of the celebration. Along one wall of the newly-designed Kohl’s Art Generation Studio is a new installation that celebrates using glass as a medium of creative impulse.

The glass sparkles, tells an important art history story, and I hope that its visual beauty inspires young artists as they create their own artwork nearby.

What is the American Studio Glass movement, and what is this anniversary?

Categories
American Art Behind the Scenes Collection

Who’s That Girl: Wisconsin Edition

Nana Kennedy with her portrait by Lester Bentley
Lester W. Bentley (American, 1908-1972), Nana, 1939. Oil on masonite. Milwaukee Art Museum, Loan to Layton from Milwaukee Public Museum. Allocated to MPM by Federal Works Agency, Works Progress Administration. Photograph by Dick Kennedy
Nana Kennedy with Lester W. Bentley (American, 1908-1972). Nana, 1939. Oil on masonite. Milwaukee Art Museum, Loan to Layton from Milwaukee Public Museum. Allocated to MPM by Federal Works Agency, Works Progress Administration. Photograph by Dick Kennedy
Nana Kennedy with Lester W. Bentley (American, 1908-1972). Nana, 1939. Oil on masonite. Milwaukee Art Museum, Loan to Layton from Milwaukee Public Museum. Allocated to MPM by Federal Works Agency, Works Progress Administration. Photograph by Dick Kennedy

Every so often, Museum staff gets an email or learns a story that connects the art in our collection with our community. These might be far-away communities, as in the case of the English ancestors of Miss Frances Lee, or it might be close by here in Milwaukee.

Categories
Art Exhibitions

Visiting Wright Near Home

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.