Year: 2012

Museum Holiday Schedule

Bring your entire family to the Museum over the holidays and share the joy of the season through art. Be sure to see Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London and Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate before they close.

The Kohl’s Education Center will be open every day during regular Museum hours from December 26 through January 1.

Kids age 12 and under always receive free admission.

Museum Holiday Hours
Monday, December 24, Closed

Tuesday, December 25, Closed

Wednesday, December 26 through Monday, December 31, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
(Thursday, December 27, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.)

Tuesday, January 1, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

For more information, please visit mam.org/visit.

Museum Closing at 5 p.m. Today

Due to the impending snow, the Museum will close at 5 p.m. today, Thursday, December 20.

The Museum will re-open at 10 a.m. on Friday, December 21.

 

 

“Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London” closes January 13

Milwaukee Art Museum Brings Old Masters to Milwaukee
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London stops in Milwaukee on first U.S. tour

Milwaukee, Wis. –  Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London, an exhibition of forty-eight masterpieces on tour from the Iveagh Bequest collection, is on view through January 13, 2013 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Most of the paintings have never traveled to the States before, and many of them have rarely been seen outside London’s Kenwood House. The exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts and English Heritage.

A magnificent painting collection known as the Iveagh Bequest resides at Kenwood House, a neoclassical villa in London that Scottish architect Robert Adam remodeled in the eighteenth century. Donated to the nation by Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (1847–1927) and heir to the world’s most successful brewery, the collection was shaped by the tastes of the Belle Époque—Europe’s equivalent to America’s Gilded Age—when the earl shared the cultural stage and art market with other industry titans such as the Rothschilds, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Henry Clay Frick. The earl’s purchases, made mainly between 1887 and 1891, reveal a taste for the portraiture, landscape, and seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish works that could typically be found in English aristocratic collections.

“It is an honor to collaborate with Kenwood House and with the American Federation of Arts, to host this exquisite collection of masterworks,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “This priceless collection holds significance the world-over, and again, it speaks volumes about our Museum, and the reputation it has established internationally, that Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London is coming to Milwaukee.”

Among the works on view include Rembrandt’s sublime Portrait of the Artist (ca. 1665), Anthony van Dyck’s Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page (1634), Thomas Gainsborough’s Mary, Countess Howe (ca. 1764), Frans Hals’s Pieter van den Broecke (1633), and Joshua Reynolds’s Lady Louisa Manners (1779).

“These artists were inspired by Europe’s rich seascapes and landscapes and aristocratic elegance,” said Keegan. “The works are exceptional, sumptuous, and speak to the heart of the eighteenth-century Golden Age.”

While the exhibition is on tour, Kenwood House is being refurbished; the villa will reopen in late 2013.

The exhibition is curated by Susan Jenkins, together with her colleagues at English Heritage, the government’s lead advisory body for the historic environment in England.

An exhibition catalogue, published by the American Federation of Arts, accompanies the exhibition.

The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, with additional funding from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. In-kind support is provided by Barbara and Richard S. Lane.

It is presented at the Milwaukee Art Museum by BMO Harris Bank, with additional funding from Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. and Michael Best & Friedrich LLP.

ABOUT MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

ABOUT AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS
The AFA is a nonprofit institution that organizes art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishes exhibition catalogues and develops educational materials and programs for children and adults. The AFA’s mission is to enrich the public’s experience of art and understanding of culture by organizing and touring a diverse offering of exhibitions embracing all aspects of art history. The AFA has organized or circulated approximately 3,000 exhibitions with presentations in museums in every state, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa that have been viewed by more than 10 million people. For more information about its exhibitions, publications, artist talks (ArtTalks), membership, cultural travel program (ArtScapes) and online resources, including family guides and podcasts, see www.afaweb.org.

ABOUT ENGLISH HERITAGE
English Heritage is the government’s lead advisory body for the historic environment in England and is responsible for the national collection of historic sites and monuments, as well as their contents and archives. The collection comprises more than 400 historic places and spans 5,000 years of architecture, from prehistoric sites to nuclear bunkers. It includes Stonehenge and much of Hadrian’s Wall, the ruins of the greatest medieval abbeys, the world’s first iron bridge, Charles Darwin’s diaries and the Duke of Wellington’s boots. www.english-heritage.org.uk.

ABOUT KENWOOD HOUSE, LONDON
Set in beautiful landscaped parkland in the midst of Hampstead Heath, Kenwood House is one of the most magnificent visitor attractions in London. This elegant villa, remodeled by Robert Adam in the eighteenth century, houses a superb collection of paintings that includes masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Turner and Gainsborough, as well as the Suffolk collection of rare Jacobean portraits. While the exhibition is on tour, Kenwood House will be undergoing a major repair and conservation program. The work will make the roof wind and weather tight—protecting the magnificent interior and important art collection from serious leaks and damp—and will also repair and revive Kenwood’s beautiful exterior. The project will be complete in 2013.

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Bring in new, unwrapped toys for “Toys for Tots” through December 9

Through December 9, visitors can bring in new, unwrapped toys for donation to the Toys for Tots program, organized by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve since 1947. Donation boxes are located inside the main entrance of the Museum, near the admissions desks, and drop-offs can be made during regular Museum hours.

Toys are also available for purchase in the Museum Store.

The mission of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program is to collect new, unwrapped toys during October, November and December each year, and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted.

Over the 61 years of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program, Marines have distributed more than 332.5 million toys to 158.7 million needy children.

Free Museum admission on Thursday, December 6

Target Free First Thursday is December 6

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s next monthly Target Free First Thursday is set for Thursday, December 6, 2012. Admission is free for all individuals, and it includes access to Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London for free.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Daniel Keegan. “Since the program started, over 30,000 people have participated in Target Free First Thursdays. The Museum has outstanding exhibitions on view at the moment, and I encourage everyone to experience them.”

The Museum’s feature exhibition, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London, is an exhibition of forty-eight masterpieces on tour from the Iveagh Bequest collection. Most of the paintings have never traveled to the States before, and many of them have rarely been seen outside London’s Kenwood House.

Also included on December 6 is a film screening of “The Train,” which is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate. The film begins at 6:15 p.m. in Lubar Auditorium and will be followed by a talkback, in collaboration with the Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

It is also Member Double Discount Day in the Museum Store and in the Exhibition Store.

Target Free First Thursdays provides all Museum visitors with free admission on the first Thursday of each month. The Museum is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Future Target Free First Thursday dates include January 3 and February 7, 2013.

“At Target, our local grants are making a difference in the communities we serve,” said Laysha Ward, president, community relations, Target. “We’re proud to partner with the Milwaukee Art Museum as part of our ongoing commitment to give back to the communities where our guests and team members live and work.”

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2013, the Milwaukee Art Museum collection houses over 30,000 works, with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum campus is located on the shores of Lake Michigan and spans three buildings, including the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion and the Eero Saarinen-designed Milwaukee County War Memorial Center. For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

ABOUT TARGET
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at 1,740 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. Target is committed to providing a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to unique and highly differentiated products at affordable prices. Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

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Milwaukee Art Museum welcomes new Curator of Photography

Milwaukee Art Museum announces new Curator of Photography

Milwaukee, Wis. – December 3, 2012 – The Milwaukee Art Museum is pleased to announce the appointment of Lisa J. Sutcliffe as the new Curator of Photography. Sutcliffe will join the Museum in January 2013 from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she has served as assistant curator in the Department of Photography since 2007.

Lisa Sutcliffe has a wide-ranging curatorial record from her time at SFMoMA. Most recently, she organized the SFMOMA presentation of Naoya Hatakeyama: Natural Stories in association with the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. In 2009, she organized The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography, the first survey of SFMOMA’s internationally renowned collection of Japanese photography, and Photography Now: China, Japan, Korea. Additionally, she served as assistant curator for Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective co-organized with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2012); and Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870, co-organized with Tate Modern (2010).

Sutcliffe has organized film screenings, lectures and panels with internationally acclaimed artists at SFMOMA and other Bay Area institutions, and written about contemporary art and photography for diverse publications, and contributed to books for artists including Penelope Umbrico, Sean McFarland, and a forthcoming publication with Naoya Hatakeyama.

Before working at SFMoMA, Sutcliffe was the Koch Curatorial Fellow at the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts. She holds an MA in the history of art from Boston University, where she specialized in the history of photography, and a BA in art history from Wellesley College.

“Lisa Sutcliffe brings a wealth of experience and a great passion for photography to the Milwaukee Art Museum as we continue to build the collection and programs of the Museum’s thriving curatorial department,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “This is a critical juncture for the Museum as it begins to define a greatly expanded gallery presence for photography in its reinstallation plans. It is important to have a professional and respected colleague such as Lisa Sutcliffe with us in this process.”

Sutcliffe fills the position previously held by Lisa Hostetler, who left the Museum in July 2012 for the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2013, the Milwaukee Art Museum collection houses over 30,000 works, with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum campus is located on the shores of Lake Michigan and spans three buildings, including the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion and the Eero Saarinen-designed Milwaukee County War Memorial Center. For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

Museum announces new acquisition, World AIDS Day programming

Museum acquires symbolic art thanks to community benefactor
Taryn Simon photograph meant to serve as a reminder

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum announced a new acquisition, purchased with funds from the Johnson and Pabst LGBT Humanity Fund at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, given by Milwaukee philanthropist and community advocate Joseph R. Pabst. The acquisition is in recognition of World AIDS Day and will be on view December 1 through December 9.

“Live HIV, HIV Research Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts” by Taryn Simon was exhibited last year as part of the exhibition Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts and is a photograph of a vial containing the live HIV virus, taken at an HIV research laboratory at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. The image was included in the series An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007), which comprises photographs and texts revealing objects and sites that are integral to America’s foundation, mythology, or daily functioning but remain inaccessible or unknown to the public.

“I was moved when I saw this work on view in the Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts exhibition. To me, it is a stunning reminder of the millions of people who live with HIV, and those who have lost their battle,” said Joseph Pabst. “The Johnson and Pabst LGBT Humanity Fund was created to improve our community through arts and education, and I can think of no better way to highlight the continuing epidemic of HIV and AIDS than by publicly showcasing artwork that reminds us that our work is not done.”

Simon is a noted young photographer who has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her images have appeared in numerous publications. By highlighting the precarious and often unreliable seams between photographic imagery, textual material, and definitive knowledge, Simon’s art draws attention to habits of inference and judgment. Given a contemporary world rife with images and information, her work speaks to issues that affect the world.

“The Museum is grateful to Mr. Pabst for his donation and his continued support of the Museum and our community at large,” said Daniel Keegan, Museum director. “Art is meant to inspire, and I hope that this photograph will inspire others on World AIDS Day and beyond.”

World AIDS Day is acknowledged each year on December 1. It is estimated that over thirty-four million people worldwide are infected with HIV or AIDS, and over thirty million have died from the disease since it was first identified over twenty years ago.

PROGRAMMING FOR WORLD AIDS DAY
LECTURE: HIV in 2012: Hidden and Unfamiliar
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2012, 2 PM
Lubar Auditorium
Free and open to the public

Join Ronald Johnson of AIDS United and Mike Gifford of the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin for this community commemoration of World AIDS Day. Ronald Johnson, Vice President of Policy and Advocacy for AIDS United, Washington, DC, will take a provocative look at government policy and explore the opportunities for strategic responses to the epidemic. Mike Gifford, President and CEO of the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, will join Ron Johnson in a question and answer session following Johnson’s presentation.

This community commemoration is being held in conjunction with the display of Taryn Simon’s photograph “Live HIV, HIV Research Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts” (2007), on view in the Contemporary Galleries through December 9.

The event is sponsored by the Milwaukee Art Museum, the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, and the Johnson and Pabst LGBT Humanity Fund at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

ABOUT MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2013, the Milwaukee Art Museum collection houses over 30,000 works, with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum campus is located on the shores of Lake Michigan and spans three buildings, including the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion and the Eero Saarinen-designed Milwaukee County War Memorial Center. For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

ABOUT JOSEPH R. PABST
Joseph R. Pabst is a noted philanthropist who seeks to leverage his support while helping organizations make connections and increase impact. In 2004, Pabst established the Johnson and Pabst LGBT Humanity Fund at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation to support organizations with a strong LGBT foundation that serve both the LGBT community and the community at large. His contributions to the Milwaukee Art Museum include support for the 2010 AIDS Quilts installation and the 2012 Currents 34: Isaac Julien installation, currently on view. In addition to his support of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Pabst was honored in 2010 as Philanthropist of the Year by the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin for his personal donations and innovative fundraising strategies.

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Veterans receive free admission November 10 and 11

Veterans receive free admission on November 10 and 11

Milwaukee, Wis. – In recognition of Veterans Day, the Milwaukee Art Museum is providing free admission for all veterans on Saturday, November 10, and Sunday, November 11.

“We are honored to be able to offer this opportunity to our Veterans,” said Museum director Daniel Keegan. “It is a small way to say thank you for their service and sacrifice.”

The free days are a continuation of other on-going programs directed at both active military and Veterans, including the Blue Star Museum Program, free admission on Memorial Day, and starting in 2013, the Purple Heart Pass, which will allow for free admission for Purple Heart recipients.

“The Museum is committed to serving all members of the community, we look forward to welcoming Veterans as they take advantage of the wonderful community spaces that the Museum offers,” said Keegan.

The Museum’s feature exhibition, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London, is an exhibition of forty-eight masterpieces on tour from the Iveagh Bequest collection. Most of the paintings have never traveled to the States before, and many of them have rarely been seen outside London’s Kenwood House.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2013, the Milwaukee Art Museum collection houses over 30,000 works, with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum campus is located on the shores of Lake Michigan and spans three buildings, including the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion and the Eero Saarinen-designed Milwaukee County War Memorial Center. For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Free Admission on Thursday, November 1

Target Free First Thursday is November 1
First chance to see Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London for free

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s next monthly Target Free First Thursday is set for Thursday, November 1, 2012. Admission is free for all individuals, and it is the public’s first opportunity to see Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London for free.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Daniel Keegan. “Since the program started, over 30,000 people have participated in Target Free First Thursdays. The Museum has outstanding exhibitions running at the moment, and I encourage everyone to experience them.”

The Museum’s feature exhibition, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London, is an exhibition of forty-eight masterpieces on tour from the Iveagh Bequest collection. Most of the paintings have never traveled to the States before, and many of them have rarely been seen outside London’s Kenwood House.

Also included on November 1 is a film screening of “The Rape of Europa,” which is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate. The film begins at 6:15 p.m. in Lubar Auditorium and will be followed by a talkback, in collaboration with the Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Target Free First Thursdays provides all Museum visitors with free admission on the first Thursday of each month. The Museum is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Future Target Free First Thursday dates include December 6, 2012 and January 3, 2013.

“At Target, our local grants are making a difference in the communities we serve,” said Laysha Ward, president, community relations, Target. “We’re proud to partner with the Milwaukee Art Museum as part of our ongoing commitment to give back to the communities where our guests and team members live and work.”

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 25,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

ABOUT TARGET
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at 1,740 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. Target is committed to providing a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to unique and highly differentiated products at affordable prices. Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

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FREE Admission on Thursday, October 4

Target Free First Thursday is October 4

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s next monthly Target Free First Thursday is set for Thursday, October 4. Admission is free for all individuals, and special programming is included throughout the day.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Daniel Keegan. “So far, over 35,000 people have participated in Target Free First Thursdays.”

Currently open is Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate, an exhibition devoted the Bauhaus-trained German ceramicist and entrepreneur, Grete Marks. Express talks in the exhibition are scheduled for noon and 5:30 p.m. In conjunction with the exhibition and with the Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies at UWM, the film Eyewitness will be shown at 6:15 p.m., with a special talkback after the screening.

In addition, students from Milwaukee Public Schools will perform at 7 p.m. in Windhover Hall.

Target Free First Thursdays is an extension of the partnership the company has with the Museum.

“At Target, our local grants are making a difference in the communities we serve,” said Laysha Ward, president, community relations, Target. “We’re proud to partner with the Milwaukee Art Museum as part of our ongoing commitment to give back to the communities where our guests and team members live and work.”

Target Free First Thursdays provides all Museum visitors with free admission on the first Thursday of each month. The Museum is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Future Target Free First Thursday dates include November 1 and December 6.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

ABOUT TARGET
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at 1,740 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. Target is committed to providing a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to unique and highly differentiated products at affordable prices. Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

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FREE Admission on Thursday, September 6

Target Free First Thursday is September 6
Last chance to see Posters of Paris for free

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s next monthly Target Free First Thursday is set for Thursday, September 6. Admission is free for all individuals, and it is the public’s last chance to see Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries before it closes.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Dan Keegan. “So far, over 35,000 people have participated in Target Free First Thursdays, and over 100,000 people have experienced Posters of Paris here at the Museum this summer.”

Opening to the public on September 6 is Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate, an exhibition devoted the Bauhaus-trained German ceramicist and entrepreneur, Grete Marks. A special 6:15 p.m. lecture with the exhibition curator, Mel Buchanan, and Grete Marks’ daughter, Dr. Francis Marks, is scheduled in Lubar Auditorium.

Target Free First Thursdays is an extension of the partnership the company has with the Museum.

“At Target, our local grants are making a difference in the communities we serve,” said Laysha Ward, president, community relations, Target. “We’re proud to partner with the Milwaukee Art Museum as part of our ongoing commitment to give back to the communities where our guests and team members live and work.”

Target Free First Thursdays provides all Museum visitors with free admission on the first Thursday of each month. The Museum is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Future Target Free First Thursday dates include October 4, November 1, and December 6.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

ABOUT TARGET
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at 1,740 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. Target is committed to providing a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to unique and highly differentiated products at affordable prices. Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

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“Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate” opens September 6

Ceramic Works Tell Tale of Political Strong-arming
Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate tracks a career thwarted by circumstance

Milwaukee, Wis.Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate highlights the artistic output and life story of little-known, Bauhaus-trained ceramist Margarete Heymann-Löbenstein-Marks (German, 1899–1990) through approximately thirty artworks. The exhibition, on view September 6, 2012–January 1, 2013, was developed by the Milwaukee Art Museum with the cooperation of her daughter, Dr. Frances Marks.

This is the first American exhibition to explore Grete Marks’s story, an emotionally tragic tale of a forward-looking artist who was crushed by the brutal circumstances of her political time.

After attending the Bauhaus school’s ceramics program, Grete Marks founded the Haël Werkstätten für Kunstlerische Keramik (Haël Factory for Artistic Ceramics) in 1923 outside of Berlin, Germany. Under Marks’ direction, the Haël Factory both honored the German stoneware tradition of its region and exemplified the Bauhaus ideal of uniting Modern aesthetics with efficient mass production. With over one hundred employees, the factory produced boldly geometric tableware, some of which were painted with expressionistic brushwork, to consumers across Germany, the United States, and England. The exhibition also includes video footage of ceramic production at the factory.

“The Modern ceramics created within Marks’ Haël Werkstätten, with their machine precision, expressive brushwork, and attention to vernacular German traditions, show the Bauhaus teaching’s thorough influence on the artist,” said Mel Buchanan, Mae E. Demmer Assistant Curator of 20th-Century Design.

In 1933 when Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, Marks found herself in an environment where she was guilty of being artistically vanguard, politically left-leaning, and Jewish. In 1934, a member of the Nazi party purchased the Haël Factory, and in 1935, Joseph Goebbels’ propagandist Nazi newspaper Der Angriff slandered her ceramics as part of the “degenerate” art campaign.

Marks, a widow, and her son fled to England. She worked in the Stoke-on-Trent potteries, traditional manufactories where she held a variety of design positions. Unfortunately, Marks never regained the artistic or leadership stature of her period at the Haël Factory.

“Marks’ later ceramics made in England, arguably lacking the artistic vision of her earlier work, suggest that the magic and the promise of the bold young German artist was destroyed, like so much else, in World War II,” said Buchanan.

The works in the exhibition are on loan from museum and private collections in the United States and England.

Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate is supported by the Chipstone Foundation, the Mae E. Demmer Charitable Trust and the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Collectors’ Corner.

 

Posters of Paris closing soon

Exhibition celebrates the art of Toulouse-Lautrec and the Paris Belle Époque
Posters of Paris resurrects the boulevards of nineteenth-century France

Milwaukee, Wis. – This summer, the Milwaukee Art Museum transports visitors to nineteenth-century Paris with its feature exhibition, Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries.  Closing September 9, the exhibition brings together the finest French examples from the golden age of the poster.

Advertising everything from theatre productions to the debaucherous cancan, bicycles to champagne, brightly hued, larger-than-life-size posters with bold typography and playful imagery punctuated the streets of turn-of-the-century Paris. Posters of Paris features more than one hundred of these posters (including a few designs that were originally censored) by artists hailed as masters of the medium: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chéret, Pierre Bonnard, and Alphonse Mucha, and others. These artists drew from an array of styles, from Byzantine and Rococo to Realist and Art Nouveau.

“These works celebrated the dawn of new entertainment, new products, and new technology,” said Mary Weaver Chapin, exhibition curator. “The posters were audacious, colorful, bawdy, and sometimes even profane. Art critics praised the artistic posters for bringing joy and color to daily life and for giving Paris a free ‘museum for the masses,’ ‘an open-air exhibition’ that changed daily as new posters were pasted up,” said Chapin. “Some critics went further, describing the posters as superior to the paintings found in exhibitions.”

Posters were the popular tools for advertising and communication at the time, similar to today’s social media. The arrival of a new poster was newsworthy and could draw a crowd. In some cases, police intervention was required. Billposting itself turned competitive and evolved into public theater, adding to the spectacle one encountered on the streets.

“By the 1890s, artistic posters covered the boulevards throughout the city; they were posted on billboards, scaffolding, Morris columns, kiosks, in shop windows, and even pulled through the streets on mobile publicity carts,” said Chapin. “These posters were the object of intense fascination, and the term affichomanie (poster mania) was invented to describe the craze. Paris would not have been Paris without them.”

Posters were so popular that collectors stole them from billboards almost as soon as they were pasted up. New markets emerged to meet the demand; posters were both collectors’ items and fashionable home décor. Print dealers started to sell posters and publishers offered subscriptions to portfolios with the most popular images of the day in more manageable, reduced sizes. Posters that found their way into private homes eventually entered the collections of museums all over the world.

In addition to the dazzling posters, the exhibition includes rare preparatory studies and maquettes that show how artists developed their designs from the drawing board to the final lithographic poster.

Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries will be on view from June 1–September 9. Additional programming and lectures, as well as a fully illustrated catalogue, accompany the exhibition.

The exhibition sponsored by Milwaukee Art Museum’s Friends of Art, PNC Bank, and Bud and Sue Selig in honor of Jeffrey H. Loria, and is curated by Mary Weaver Chapin, formerly associate curator of prints and drawings at the Milwaukee Art Museum, curator of graphic arts at the Portland Art Museum. Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art. 

ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Free Admission on August 2

Target Free First Thursday is August 2
Museum also accepting donations for Riverwest fire victims

Milwaukee, Wis – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s monthly Target Free First Thursday for August is on Thursday, August 2. Admission is free for individuals, and access to the entire Museum is included.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Daniel Keegan. “Since the program started, over 30,000 people have participated in Target Free First Thursdays.”

The Museum will also accept cash or check donations to help the victims of the Center Street fire in Riverwest, which happened on July 17. Checks should be made out directly to MARN, the Milwaukee Artist Resource Network, who has set up an emergency fund to benefit the artists affected by the fire.

“It is important to reach out to our friends and neighbors in a time of need, and I encourage the community to donate to those who have lost their homes and livelihoods,” said Keegan.

The Museum’s feature exhibition, Posters of Paris, has been a popular stop for summer visitors. Advertising everything from theatre productions to the debaucherous cancan, bicycles to champagne, brightly hued, larger-than-life-size posters with bold typography and playful imagery punctuated the streets of turn-of-the-century Paris. Also on view is Face Jugs: Art and Ritual in 19th Century South Carolina, and contemporary installations by Tara Donovan and video artist Isaac Julien.

Target Free First Thursdays provides all Museum visitors with free admission on the first Thursday of each month. The Museum is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Future Target Free First Thursday dates include September 6, October 4, and November 1, 2012.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

ABOUT TARGET
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at 1,740 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. Target is committed to providing a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to unique and highly differentiated products at affordable prices. Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

“Western Union: Small Boats” now on view

Museum acquires major work by Isaac Julien
Contemporary video installation presented sequentially for the first time 

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum has acquired a video work by London-based Contemporary artist Isaac Julien. Western Union: Small Boats (2007) juxtaposes the grandeur of the Sicilian Palazzo Gangi (made famous by Luchino Visconti’s 1963 cinematic masterpiece The Leopard) with present-day sea voyages from Africa to the Mediterranean.

Western Union: Small Boats is part of Julien’s “Expeditions” trilogy, now on view as part of the Museum’s Currents series, which highlights the work of Contemporary artists.

As with all the works in “Expeditions,” Western Union is presented on three separated projection screens, physically indicating the fragmented narratives of the work.

“We are delighted to have acquired Western Union: Small Boats into our permanent collection and are honored to be the first to present these three works sequentially,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Julien’s masterful filmmaking and control of the installation environment create an experience that combines the formality of a gallery with an enveloping cinema theater.”

As part of Currents, the “Expeditions” trilogy (True North, Fantôme Afrique, Western Union: Small Boats) is being presented together, sequentially, for the first time.

True North (2004) is a meditative work loosely inspired by the story of the African American explorer Matthew Henson, who accompanied Robert Peary as one of the first people to reach the North Pole. Fantôme Afrique (2005) punctuates a tour through urban Ouagadougou, the center for cinema in Africa, and the arid spaces of rural Burkina Faso, with archival footage from early colonial expeditions and key moments in African history.

“His multi-screen installations display rich narrative imageries of architecture and landscapes that reference issues in global politics, race, and migration,” said Roberts. “Isaac Julien’s video installations combine mesmerizing images linked across screens with compelling audio tracks that are immediately engaging yet conceptually layered.”

Isaac Julien (b. 1960) first came to prominence with his dramatic documentary Looking for Langston (1989), in which he explored the life of poet Langston Hughes during the Harlem Renaissance as a parallel to his own identity as a gay black artist.

Isaac Julien’s “Expeditions” is on view  through February 17, 2013 in the Contemporary Galleries at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

The acquisition of Western Union: Small Boats is funded by the Contemporary Art Society, the Ralph and Cora Oberndorfer Family Trust, and by exchange. Programming for this exhibition is generously sponsored by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Johnson and Pabst LGBT Humanity Fund, the Contemporary Art Society, and the African American Art Alliance.

ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Museum open July 4; Free admission July 5

Milwaukee Art Museum open July 4; free admission on July 5

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s next monthly Target Free First Thursday is set for Thursday, July 5, 2012. Admission is free for all individuals from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and it is the public’s first chance to see Isaac Julien’s “Western Union: Small Boats” for free. The Museum’s feature exhibition Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries is also on view.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Daniel Keegan. “Since the program started, over 30,000 people have participated in Target Free First Thursdays. The Museum has three outstanding exhibitions running at the moment, and I encourage everyone to experience them.”

In addition, the Milwaukee Art Museum will be open on Wednesday, July 4 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Museum’s feature exhibition, Posters of Paris, opened on June 1. Advertising everything from theatre productions to the debaucherous cancan, bicycles to champagne, brightly hued, larger-than-life-size posters with bold typography and playful imagery punctuated the streets of turn-of-the-century Paris. Posters of Paris features more than one hundred of these posters (including a few designs that were originally censored) by artists hailed as masters of the medium: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chéret, Pierre Bonnard, and Alphonse Mucha, and others.

Target Free First Thursdays provides all Museum visitors with free admission on the first Thursday of each month. The Museum is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Future Target Free First Thursday dates include August 2, September 2, and October 4, 2012.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

ABOUT TARGET
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at 1,740 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. Target is committed to providing a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to unique and highly differentiated products at affordable prices. Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

Free admission for veterans, active military on July 1

Free Admission for Active Military all summer long at Milwaukee Art Museum
Veterans celebrated on special Family Day, Sunday, July 1

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum will offer free admission to all active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day 2012, thanks to a partnership with Blue Star Families and Blue Star Museums. On view at the Museum this summer is Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries.

On Sunday, July 1, the Milwaukee Art Museum will also offer all veterans and their families free admission, thanks to a partnership with Milwaukee County. Free parking is also available in the War Memorial parking lot.

“It is an honor to work with Blue Star Museums and Milwaukee County to offer this opportunity to military families,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “It is a pleasure to collaborate yet again with the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families, and the Department of Defense to honor those who serve our country.”

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MAM After Dark: Cancan happening Friday, June 22

MAM After Dark returns Friday, June 22
Celebrate all-things-French with a night of cancan, burlesque, and Posters of Paris

Milwaukee, Wis. – MAM After Dark celebrates the opening of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s newest exhibiton, Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries on Friday, June 22 with MAM After Dark: Cancan.

The evening includes live outdoor music by Milwaukee Hot Club and indoor tunes with DJ Why-B, food by Coquette Café, complimentary wine tastings by Café Calatrava, and live cancan dancing by Gypsy Moon Dance. The featured performers for the evening are the Brew City Bombshells Burlesque dancers, who take the stage at 9 p.m.

In addition to the special events for the evening, MAM After Dark will again feature the Photo Booth, DIY Studio, and a curator-led tour of Posters of Paris at 8 p.m.

MAM After Dark: Cancan runs 5 p.m. to midnight on Friday, June 22, 2011. Admission is $12 at the door or $6 in advance at mam.org/afterdark. Museum members are free.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Lakefront Festival of Arts coming June 15-17

Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates 50 years of the Lakefront Festival of Arts

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s 2012 Lakefront Festival of Arts (LFOA) celebrates its 50th year this June with many new offerings to entertain the entire family. The event takes place Friday, June 15, through Sunday, June 17, on the grounds of the Museum along Lake Michigan. The 50th annual LFOA is presented by Quad/Graphics and Milwaukee Magazine.

LFOA started as a two-day festival in 1963, with about 100 exhibitors. The family-friendly event has evolved to become one of the top twenty-five art festivals in the country, featuring work by more than 170 artists, including jewelry, painting, sculpture, photography, and more.

For the third consecutive year, artists will also be exhibiting inside the Museum, allowing attendees access to the entire Museum collection and the Museum’s feature exhibition, Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries.

In addition to the world-class art and artist booths, the festival includes Lakefront Late Night, the Milwaukee Magazine Wine Garden, a sculpture garden, gourmet food, live music, and the PNC Children’s Experience, with interactive games and activities for kids.

“LFOA is the perfect event for the whole family,” says Krista Renfrew, director of special events at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “From world-class art, to the wine garden, the children’s area, entertainment, and Lakefront Late Night, there’s something for everyone.”

Funds raised from the event help acquire new art for the Museum’s collection.

“Over the past 49 years, the festival has provided the means to acquire more than 250 new works of art for the Museum’s permanent collection,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Festival admission is $8 in advance, $15 at the gate, or $20 for a three-day pass. Tickets can be purchased online and at participating locations throughout Southeastern Wisconsin. Festival tickets include admission to the Milwaukee Art Museum. Festival hours are:

Friday, June 15, Noon – 11 p.m.
Saturday, June 16, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Sunday, June 17, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

LFOA is presented by Quad/Graphics and Milwaukee Magazine and sponsored in part by Baker Tilly, PNC Bank, MillerCoors, Hawke Nursery, Core Creative, Erie Insurance, Concordia University, International Autos Group, Potawatomi, Sommer’s Automotive.

 

Tara Donovan exhibition now open

New installation by Tara Donovan highlights the extraordinary
Works at Milwaukee Art Museum showcase common materials in new lights

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum opens the latest installation in its “Currents” series with the sculptural works of contemporary artist Tara Donovan. The exhibition runs through October 7, 2012.

Recognized for her commitment to process, Donovan utilizes the inherent physical characteristics of common and manufactured materials—straws, pins, Styrofoam cups—and the multiplication and interaction of the individual units, to create organic installations with powerful perceptual and atmospheric effects. In 2010, the Museum acquired Donovan’s Bluffs, which is comprised of thousands of buttons, stacked and glued in such a way as to evoke glistening stalagmites or a coral reef.

“Donovan’s process involves selecting one material and finding one unique solution for its construction, whether it’s folding, gluing, stacking, or pressing,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “This system—one material, one process, one solution—has its roots in the art of the 1960s. Donovan is an admirer of artists Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Chuck Close, each of whom developed rigorous systems and rule-based art.”

Currents 35: Tara Donovan features two of the artist’s major installation works: Haze, which covers a 32-foot wall with approximately three million straws, and Untitled (Mylar), which, activated by various sources of light, will face the lake.

The exhibition also includes four works made with thousands of nickel-plated steel pins—that are part drawing, part assemblage, part sculpture – and a large installation resembling crystals, made with clear plastic rods, broken into different lengths. As in all of her work, the source material is transformed and not immediately recognizable.

“’Currents’ is an ongoing series of exhibitions at the Museum that explores new trends in contemporary art, and Donovan is a rising star in the contemporary art world, known for her spectacular transformations of everyday objects,” said Roberts.

Tara Donovan has received numerous awards, including the prestigious McArthur “genius award.”

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Final Days of Accidental Genius; Free Admission Thursday, May 3

Acclaimed Self-Taught Art Exhibition to Close May 6
Last chance to see Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection for Free on Thursday, May 3

Milwaukee, Wis. – Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection, an original exhibition of two hundred modern self-taught art works, will close on Sunday, May 6. The exhibition includes many of the most important European and American artists in the genre, and celebrates the significant gift of works by Milwaukee collector Anthony Petullo to the Museum.

Accidental Genius showcases an exceptional collection of eclectic modern self-taught art from creators driven by impulse, vision, and necessity, without regard for acclaim, popularity, or profit,” said Margaret Andera, adjunct curator. “The exhibition features drawings, paintings, and objects by leading artists, including Henry Darger, Martín Ramírez, Bill Traylor, Adolf Wölfli, Anna Zemankova, and Carlo Zinelli, among others.”

According to Museum Director Daniel Keegan, Accidental Genius highlights over two-thirds of Petullo’s gift, which represents one of the most extensive groupings of modern self-taught art in any American museum or private collection. In all, over three hundred works were gifted to the Museum.

“The gift of the Petullo Collection establishes the Milwaukee Art Museum as a leading American institution for the work of untrained creators, and comes at a crucial turning point in the history of the genre,” said Keegan.

Previously defined as “outsider art,” “art brut,” or “naïve art,” the works in the Petullo Collection, more often than not, were made by artists whose personal stories and motivations are as compelling as the art itself. The exhibition has received rave reviews from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, OnMilwaukee.com, The Shepherd Express, ThirdCoast Digest, and more.

Petullo, a retired Milwaukee businessman, built his collection over a span of three decades. Objects from the Petullo Collection have been on display throughout the country, including a six-stop museum exhibition, and various objects have been loaned to museums and galleries around the world.

“My collection reflects the driving passion of both the creators, and the collector,” said Anthony Petullo. “When I began collecting I had no idea the impact that my collection would have on the self-taught art world. I am grateful that I have had the fortune to share these incredible objects with so many, and I am honored that they will continue to be enjoyed at the Milwaukee Art Museum.”

Generous support for Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection is provided by The Anthony Petullo Foundation, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Einhorn Family Foundation, and Donald and Donna Baumgartner.

HOURS AND ADMISSION
The Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Admission is $15 for adults; $12 for students, seniors, and active military; and free for Members and for children age 12 and under.

The first Thursday of each month is Target Free First Thursday and admission is free for individuals (does not apply to groups).

ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Chipstone Foundation opens Face Jugs exhibition on April 26

Chipstone Foundation Opens Face Jugs: Art and Ritual in 19th-Century South Carolina
Exhibition Returns a Voice to Objects that Have Long Stood Silent

Milwaukee, Wis. – For the first time in nearly thirty years, Face Jugs: Art and Ritual in 19th-Century South Carolina brings together a comprehensive collection of early Edgefield face vessels from leading institutions and collectors. On view at the Milwaukee Art Museum from April 26 through August 5, 2012, the exhibition examines the face jug as a wondrous, albeit complex, object.

In the mid-nineteenth century, slaves in the Edgefield District of South Carolina began creating vessels with applied faces, a form now known as the face jug. The small vessel is turned stoneware with facial features—wide eyes and bared teeth—made of kaolin, a locally sourced clay. By the end of the century, African Americans were no longer producing face jugs. White potters appropriated the design, stopped using kaolin, and created similar objects mostly as whimsies. The vessels grew in popularity but had lost the symbolic power of their original form. Unfortunately, as time passed, the story mysteriously disappeared as well.

“The exhibition celebrates the aesthetic power of these potent art forms,” says Claudia Mooney, curator for the Chipstone Foundation. “It explores the different lenses through which to consider the vessels and their uses and, perhaps more important, their cultural meanings within a community of Americans that lived within the most challenging of circumstances.”

In light of new research, Face Jugs: Art and Ritual in 19th-Century South Carolina present the vessels within a context that takes into account the realities of slavery in the Southern United States, exploring their use as coded objects carrying hidden meanings.

“Few early American artifacts are as visually powerful and thematically complex as the diminutive stoneware face vessels made in South Carolina during and right after the Civil War,” says Jon Prown, director for the Chipstone Foundation. “Woven into their fabric are stories of cultural movement, human survival, spiritualism, and technological prowess that resonate as much today as they did 150 years ago.”

The exhibition is curated by Claudia Mooney, assistant curator at the Chipstone Foundation.

 ABOUT THE CHIPSTONE FOUNDATION
The Chipstone Foundation is a decorative arts foundation whose mission is preserving and interpreting their collection, as well as stimulating research and education in the decorative arts.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 25,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Art in Bloom returns this weekend

Art in Bloom expands with exotic flair
Fifth annual Art in Bloom event premieres Iron Designer competition, wine tent, March 29–April 1

Milwaukee, Wis. – Get a jump start on spring at Art in Bloom, the annual tribute to art and flowers at the Milwaukee Art Museum, March 29–April 1, 2012. The inspiration for this year’s event is the Museum’s feature exhibition, Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection.

Showcasing the talents of over forty-five renowned floral designers from across the Midwest, Art in Bloom brings together gardening, floral arranging, and landscape design, inspired by the art beneath the wings of the Museum and throughout the Galleries. The event also includes lectures, seminars, and activities for both experienced and novice gardeners.

This year, the event will also expand outdoors with a heated tent, allowing for more displays and a first-ever Art in Bloom wine garden. Also new this year is the event’s Iron Designer competition, where past award winners will come together to design a floral arrangement in less than one hour. Iron Designers will include Nicholas Carl from Nicholas Carl Design, Denise Gehrke from Waukesha Floral & Greenhouse, and Pam Borgardt from Milaegers.

“Art in Bloom is a perfect way to welcome spring while expanding and enriching your own floral and gardening knowledge,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “With guest appearances by celebrity floral designers and master gardeners, René van Rems, Mark Dwyer, Zannah Crowe, and Melinda Myers, it’s a fun and inspiring environment.”

A complete schedule of lectures, events, and ticket information can be found at mam.org/bloom.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 30,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Kohl’s Education Center opens Saturday

Kohl’s and Milwaukee Art Museum Announce the Grand Opening
of the New Kohl’s Education Center
Designed to spark creativity and encourage an appreciation of art, the new Kohl’s Education Center
opens on Saturday, February 25, 2012

MILWAUKEE – Kohl’s Department Stores (NYSE: KSS) and Milwaukee Art Museum are pleased to announce the grand opening of the new Kohl’s Education Center inside the Museum. The Center is comprised of the Kohl’s Art Generation Studio, Gallery and Lab and is designed for families and kids to cultivate an appreciation and love for art, at a time when art education may not be available at schools due to budget cuts.

On Saturday, February 25, at 10 a.m., the public can get a first look at the new Kohl’s Education Center. Inside the Center, children and families will be able to learn about art through fun, high-tech and interactive games and exhibits, while also being able to create art of their own. The Kohl’s Art Generation program, now in its fourth year, is made possible by $3.7 million from Kohl’s Cares and Kohl’s Department Stores to the Milwaukee Art Museum.

“Art is about creativity. It’s about fun and excitement. We want to give kids an opportunity to experience and express art on their terms,” said Brigid Globensky, senior director of education and public programs at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “That’s why we’re thrilled to offer the Kohl’s Art Generation program. Together with Kohl’s Department Stores, we’ve developed a truly fun program that will engage children and families in the joy of art and the creative process.”

The Kohl’s Art Generation Gallery and Lab educate children on the fundamentals of art in fun, interactive ways, while the Studio features a variety of hands-on activities and art projects—fresh and different every month—that children and families can work on together.

“At Kohl’s, part of our mission is to support children’s health and education initiatives in the communities we are a part of, and this is especially true here in our hometown,” said Julie Gardner, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Kohl’s Department Stores. “Many school districts are facing the reality of budget cuts resulting in fewer art education programs. We’re proud to partner with the Milwaukee Art Museum to bring Kohl’s Art Generation to local kids and families to be sure they have access to engaging, educational art programming.”

The new Kohl’s Education Center will serve as the hub of the Kohl’s Art Generation family programming, which includes;

The Kohl’s Art Generation Studio: A hands-on art studio that features a variety of activities and art projects, with new projects each month. Children and families can choose to stop in for a few minutes or spend an entire day creating art together. The studio is open to public on Sundays from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.
The Kohl’s Art Generation Gallery: A kid-friendly gallery that educates children on the fundamentals of art. The first exhibit, “Animation: Art Goes to the Movies,” explores how animators of today’s most popular movies draw inspiration from historical works of art. The Gallery will be open during regular Museum hours.
The Kohl’s Art Generation Lab: A place for kids and families to explore what happens behind the scenes at an art museum. Visitors will be able to X-ray a painting, change the frames on works of art, ask the Museum curators about their career, the exhibitions, and more. The Lab will be open during regular Museum hours.

Since the introduction of this programming, the Museum has seen attendance of children and families grow to the highest levels in Museum history.

The Gallery and Lab are open during regular Museum hours, which are Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours until 8 p.m. on Thursdays. The Studio is open Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Access to these areas is free with Museum admission, which is $15 for adults and $12 for students over age 12. Kids 12 and under and Museum members are free. For more information, visit www.mam.org.

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About Kohl’s Department Stores
Based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., Kohl’s (NYSE: KSS) is a family-focused, value-oriented specialty department store offering moderately priced, exclusive and national brand apparel, shoes, accessories, beauty and home products in an exciting shopping environment. With a commitment to environmental leadership, Kohl’s operates 1,127 stores in 49 states. In support of the communities it serves, Kohl’s has raised more than $180 million for children’s initiatives nationwide through its Kohl’s Cares® cause merchandise program, which operates under Kohl’s Cares, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kohl’s Department Stores, Inc. For a list of store locations and information, or for the added convenience of shopping online, visit www.Kohls.com.

About the Milwaukee Art Museum
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 25,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

 

Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection now open

Petullo Collection Debuts at Milwaukee Art Museum 

Accidental Genius highlights major gift to Museum, redefines genre

Milwaukee, Wis.Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection, an original exhibition of modern self-taught art featuring more than two hundred works opens Friday, February 10, 2012, at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The exhibition includes many of the most important European and American artists in the genre, and celebrates the significant gift of works by Milwaukee collector Anthony Petullo to the Museum.

Accidental Genius showcases an exceptional collection of eclectic modern self-taught art from creators driven by impulse, vision, and necessity, without regard for acclaim, popularity, or profit,” said Margaret Andera, adjunct curator. “The exhibition features drawings, paintings, and objects by leading artists, including Henry Darger, Martín Ramírez, Bill Traylor, Adolf Wölfli, Anna Zemankova, and Carlo Zinelli, among others.”

According to Museum Director Daniel Keegan, Accidental Genius will display over two-thirds of Petullo’s gift, which represents one of the most extensive groupings of modern self-taught art in any American museum or private collection. In all, over three hundred works were gifted to the Museum.

“The gift of the Petullo Collection establishes the Milwaukee Art Museum as a leading American institution for the work of untrained creators, and comes at a crucial turning point in the history of the genre,” said Keegan. “The Museum’s commitment to the work of self-taught artists began as early as 1951 with the gift of two paintings by Wisconsin artist Anna Louisa Miller, and expanded through the Hall Collection and the Flagg Collection. With the Museum’s acquisition of the world-class Petullo Collection, its holdings now encompass a more broadly inclusive representation of this genre, and we are challenged to understand this work on a new level.”

Previously defined as “outsider art,” “art brut,” or “naïve art,” the works in the Petullo Collection, more often than not, were made by artists whose personal stories and motivations are as compelling as the art itself.

British artist Scottie Wilson’s career began when he started doodling on a tabletop in the back room of the shop he owned. Swiss artist Rosemarie Koczy, who was imprisoned with her family in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, was driven by her experiences in the camp, and by the death of her father, to create her artwork.

Rural Texas native Eddie Arning discovered his artistic ability later in life through an art class offered at his nursing home. Magazine illustrations and products from advertisements inspired his pastel drawings.

Some of the lesser-known but equally significant artists collected by Petullo include English laborer James Lloyd and Italian draftsman Domenico Zindato.

Petullo, a retired Milwaukee businessman, built his collection over a span of three decades. Objects from the Petullo Collection have been on display throughout the country, including a six-stop museum exhibition, and various objects have been loaned to museums and galleries around the world.

“My collection reflects the driving passion of both the creators, and the collector,” said Anthony Petullo. “When I began collecting I had no idea the impact that my collection would have on the self-taught art world. I am grateful that I have had the fortune to share these incredible objects with so many, and I am honored that they will continue to be enjoyed at the Milwaukee Art Museum.”

Petullo is a Milwaukee entrepreneur and author, and a longtime member of the Museum’s Board of Directors and the Museum’s Exhibitions Committee. He is also a member of the Rotary Club of Milwaukee and has received multiple awards for his community service and charitable contributions.
Generous support for Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection is provided by The Anthony Petullo Foundation, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Einhorn Family Foundation, and Donald and Donna Baumgartner.

ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING FOR ACCIDENTAL GENIUS: ART FROM THE ANTHONY PETULLO COLLECTION
12-Hour Member Preview Celebration
Thurs, Feb. 9, 10 a.m.–10 p.m.
Docent-led tours and free audio guides available
Lectures: 1:30 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. in Lubar Auditorium

Exhibition Lecture with Anthony Petullo
Fri, Feb. 10, 1:30 p.m.
Lubar Auditorium

Gallery Talks with the Curator
Tues, Feb. 14, March 20, April 3, April 24, 1:30 p.m.

Express Talks
Thurs, Feb. 16 and 23, noon
Thurs, March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, noon
Thurs, April 5, 12, 19, 26, noon
Thurs, May 3, noon
Thurs, March 1, April 5, May 3, 5:30 p.m.
Target Free First Thursdays
March 1, April 5, May 3

MAM After Dark: Mardi Gras
Fri, Feb. 17, 5 p.m.–midnight
Details and advance admission at mam.org/afterdark.

Art in Bloom
Thursday, March 29–Sunday, April 1
Details and advance admission at mam.org/bloom.

Kohl’s Art Generation Family Sundays: Making your Mark
Sun, March 18, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection

HOURS AND ADMISSION
The Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Admission is $15 for adults; $12 for students, seniors, and active military; and free for Members and for children age 12 and under.

The first Thursday of each month is Target Free First Thursday and admission is free for individuals (does not apply to groups).

ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 25,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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Impressionism Closing Sunday

Final Days to Experience Groundbreaking Impressionism Exhibition

Milwaukee, Wis. – Closing out the year-long anniversary celebration of the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper closes Sunday, January 8. Organized by the Museum in partnership with the Albertina in Vienna, the exhibition presents more than one hundred drawings, watercolors, and pastels by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

Some of the greatest artists in the history of Western European art, including Manet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Seurat, Gauguin, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec, created works on paper that may be less well-known than their paintings, but which are just as significant. Active in France during the second half of the nineteenth century, these artists wanted, contrary to the entrenched teachings of the Academy of Fine Arts, an art that reflected the experiences of modern times.

“This is a scholarly exhibition devoted almost exclusively to works on paper and will considerably extend our current knowledge of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism,” said Laurie Winters, director of exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Masterworks on Paper will show that the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists chose to emphasize drawing, thereby ceasing to recognize the traditional distinction between drawing and painting. They elevated the status of drawing to the level of painting itself.”

It is not widely known that a large proportion of the artwork shown in the eight Impressionist exhibitions held in Paris between 1874 and 1886 were works on paper. Many of these have been identified and will be shown in Masterworks on Paper.

“Overall, the exhibition will provide an overview of the artists’ drawing skills at this critical stage in the development of French art—and, in turn, modern art.  The various styles and techniques the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists used will be represented, shedding light on how these artists made inroads for the Abstract Expressionists, among others,” said Winters.

The exhibition will also include a limited number of paintings, including Renoir’s Bathers with Crab, which is on loan to the Museum from the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. The painting was part of a Super Bowl XLV wager between the museums. The Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25.

Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum in partnership with the Albertina in Vienna. The exhibition was co-curated in Milwaukee by Christopher Lloyd, guest curator, and Laurie Winters, director of exhibitions at the Museum.

Presented by The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and Chase, with additional support from Einhorn Family Foundation, Nancy and Arthur Laskin, Myron Laskin, Jr., Kenneth R. Treis, Quarles & Brady LLP, Fine Arts Society in memory of Jane Doud, and The Marcus Corporation.

HOURS AND ADMISSION
The Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Admission is $15 for adults and $12 for students, seniors and active military, and is free for Members and children age 12 and under.

ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 25,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, please visit www.mam.org.

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