The Bradley Collection of Modern Art: A Bold Vision for Milwaukee

Fifty years ago, Mrs. Harry Lynde “Peg” Bradley’s extraordinary gift of nearly 400 twentieth-century masterpieces shaped the Museum's collection and Milwaukee's cultural landscape. Her collection placed the city in the global spotlight as a leading cultural destination for modern art, and its legacy continues to inspire generations.

Peg Bradley was a prominent Milwaukee-based philanthropist and prolific art collector who followed her intuition and personal taste to build a substantial collection of modern and contemporary paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. In the mid-1970s, she honored her late husband Harry’s civic pride in Milwaukee and kept the world-class collection in their hometown by donating it to the Museum. Her remarkable gift prompted the construction of a new wing and enriched the collection with strong holdings of German Expressionism, postwar abstraction, and modern sculpture—many of which are now considered the Museum's great treasures.

The exhibition features nearly 100 works by renowned artists Barbara Hepworth, Alex Katz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, and Mark Rothko, among many others, and presents these iconic artworks like never before with new scholarship and recent conservation treatments.