Bring your entire family to the Museum over the holidays and share the joy of the season through art. Be sure to see Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper and Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts before they close.

Kids age 12 and under always receive free admission, and the Kohl’s Art Generation Open Studio will be open every day from 10–4 during the holiday week.

Museum Holiday Hours
Saturday, December 24, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Sunday, December 25, Closed

Monday, December 26 through Saturday, December 31, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
(Thursday, December 29, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.)

Sunday, January 1, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

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

The Tool at Hand Opens at the Milwaukee Art Museum
Artists Challenged to Create a Work of Art Using Only One Tool

Milwaukee, Wis. – In March of 2011, the Chipstone Foundation invited sixteen established artists from Britain and America to participate in an unusual experiment: each artist was asked to lay aside his or her standard tool kit and craft a work of art with one tool alone. The Tool at Hand will showcase these works, the tools that crafted them, and short, explanatory videos produced by each artist, in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Decorative Arts Gallery, December 8, 2011–April 1, 2012.

“The challenge presented to the artists sounds simple: create a work of art with one tool. The material and tool to be used were left open-ended, with the purpose of encouraging creativity within the one-tool constraint,” said Ethan Lasser, curator of the exhibition for the Chipstone Foundation. “For centuries, artists and artisans have felt a particularly intimate connection to their tools. Tools have been described as extensions of the body, and in certain cultures, they have been revered as sacred objects with lives of their own.”

The exhibition will feature a variety of mediums and tools, ranging from paintings to sculpture, a paintbrush to a dental drill. For example, Hongtao Zhou uses a double boiler to melt wax that is then molded into a chair. “As a commission that imposes a sharp and rather unusual constraint, The Tool at Hand puts the skill and creativity of some of the most talented names in the art world today to the test. As a project that offers makers a chance to reflect on the way they use their tools, the exhibition promises to open a window into a relatively unexplored dimension of the artistic process,” said Lasser.

The artists who have crafted work for The Tool at Hand include Helen Carnac, David Clarke, Liz Collins, Chad Curtis, Michael Eden, Ndidi Ekubia, Joy Garnett, David Gates, Lisa Gralnich, Jon Prown, Tavs Jorgensen, Mark Lindquist, Beth Lipman, Gord Peteran, Hongtao Zhou and Caroline Slotte.

The exhibition is curated by Ethan Lasser, 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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HOLIDAY SHOPPING MADE EASY AT MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
Special Members-only events, free shipping available for stress-free shopping

Milwaukee, Wis. – With the holiday season starting earlier each year, the Milwaukee Art Museum Store has made holiday shopping as easy and convenient as possible, focusing on price points for all budgets, an eye for the eco-friendly, and a tilt toward the creative.

“The Milwaukee Art Museum Store is the perfect place for holiday shopping,” said Karen McNeely, director of retail operations. “It’s convenient, unique, and there’s literally something for everyone, from the seasoned art collector to the design aficionado to the jewelry fan to kids.”

“The Museum Store is located inside the Calatrava-designed addition to the Museum and is free to access; you do not have to pay Museum admission to come shopping,” said McNeely. “There’s convenient, underground parking and unique items that you will not find in any other place in town.”

Among the items McNeely says are most popular with shoppers are household items and personal items. There’s also a large selection of children’s toys and educational options.

Also available are specially-themed items for the Museum’s current feature exhibition, Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper, on view through January 8, 2012. The Museum has a second retail store located inside the exhibition hall with items related to the show, including books, clothes, hats, jewelry, and home décor.

MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM STORE HOURS
The Museum Store is open Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursdays until 8 p.m.

UPCOMING EVENTS AT THE MUSEUM STORE
• Member Private Holiday Shopping Event – Tuesday, Nov. 15, 5 p.m.–8 p.m.
• Member Double Discount Days – Friday, Nov. 25, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursdays, Dec. 1, 8, 15, and 22,
10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Free Domestic Shipping – Valid for all on online purchases over $25 from Nov. 28 through Dec. 15 at mam.org/store.

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.

Target Free First Thursday is December 1
Last chance to see Taryn Simon, Building a Masterpiece for free

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s next monthly Target Free First Thursday is set for Thursday, December 1. Admission is free for all individuals, and it is the public’s last chance to see Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts and Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum 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 25,000 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.”

Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts and Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum are open until January 1, 2012. The Museum’s feature exhibition, Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper, runs through January 8, 2012.

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 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 5, 2012.

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.

Thank you to everyone who supported the Milwaukee Art Museum in the Business Journal of Milwaukee’s “Brand Madness” competition. After several tough rounds against some of Milwaukee’s finest and most-popular brands, the Milwaukee Art Museum has won and has been named “Milwaukee’s Best Brand.”

Your Milwaukee Art Museum would not have been successful without the support of friends, members, sponsors, and fans. Votes, endorsement, and encouragement came in from all over the city and the country. It is an honor to be chosen as the brand for the City of Milwaukee.

Milwaukee Art Museum exhibition honors Santiago Calatrava masterpiece
Public can submit their photographs of Milwaukee’s icon

Milwaukee, Wis. – It has been named the sexiest building in the world, featured in TV ads and shows and Hollywood movies, and it has transformed the city of Milwaukee. In September, the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates the 10th anniversary of its iconic building, the Quadracci Pavilion, with the exhibition Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Designed by internationally renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, the Quadracci Pavilion was the Spaniard’s first completed commission in the United States. In 2001, it was named TIME Magazine’s “Best Design of 2001.”

“The exhibition features watercolors and models by the architect—works of art in themselves—that track the evolution of the building’s design,” said Chief Curator Brady Roberts. “The watercolors have a stream-of-consciousness-like quality, as the imagery flows from humans to sails, to Lake Michigan, to uncanny representations of Windhover Hall, imagined at the very outset of Calatrava’s design process in the mid-1990s. His models reveal the complex development of the moving wings of the Burke Brise Soleil, one of the most spectacular architectural elements in the world.”

Building a Masterpiece further highlights the construction of the entirely custom-made project, a testament to Milwaukee’s tradition of precision manufacturing and craftsmanship, through photographs, drawings, and models. Visitors will also be invited to submit their favorite photographs of the Museum—of its interior as well as its exterior. The best of these will be included in the exhibition, demonstrating how significantly the building has brought a sense of pride in, as well as international attention to, the city.

Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum will be on view through January 1, 2012 and is presented by Donald and Donna Baumgartner, and Eileen and Barry Mandel.

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.

Museum offers up free admission days to area families, vets

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum is continuing its highly-successful program, Target Free First Thursday, on Thursday, November 3 and Thursday, December 1. Admission is free for all individuals and the program offers the opportunity to see Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper, Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts, and Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum for free.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Daniel Keegan. “In the past year, over 21,000 people have participated in Target Free First Thursdays. The Museum is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursdays, which allows for more families and working professionals to share in the benefits.”

The Museum is also offering free admission to all veterans and their families on Saturday, November 5, and Friday, November 11 in honor of Veteran’s Day. The Museum Store is also giving veterans a special discount on purchases.

“The Museum is honored to participate in the Milwaukee area’s Veteran’s Day activities by offering free admission to these brave men and women who have served our country,” said Keegan.

Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts and Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum run through January 1, 2012. Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper runs through January 8, 2012.

“I encourage everyone to experience these three outstanding exhibitions with their friends and family before they close,” said Keegan.

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.

Milwaukee Art Museum Premieres Groundbreaking Impressionism Exhibition

Milwaukee, Wis. – Closing out the year-long anniversary celebration of the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper premieres at the Milwaukee Art Museum on Friday, October 14. 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. It runs Friday, October 14, 2011, through Sunday, January 8, 2012.

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.

ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING FOR IMPRESSIONISM: MASTERWORKS ON PAPER
12-Hour Member Preview Celebration
Thurs, Oct. 13, 10 a.m.–10 p.m.
Lectures: 1:30 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.

Exhibition Lecture with guest curator Christopher Lloyd, Former Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures
Fri, Oct. 14, 1:30 p.m.
Lubar Auditorium

Lecture: Renoir’s Bathers
Thurs, Oct. 27, 6:15 p.m.

Lecture: Drawings for Edgar Degas’ “Little Dancer”
Sun, Nov. 6, 1:30 p.m.

Gallery Talks with the Curator
Tues, Oct. 15, 1:30 p.m.
Tues, Nov. 15, 1:30 p.m.

Express Talks
Thurs, Oct. 20–Nov. 17, Noon
Thurs, Nov. 3, 5:30 p.m.

Gallery Talk in French
Sat, Nov. 12, 1:30 p.m.

Book Salon
The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King
Sat, Nov. 19, 10:30 a.m.
RSVP to Amy Kirschke at 414-224-3826 or amy.kirschke@mam.org

MAM After Dark | Impress Me
Fri, Nov. 18, 5 p.m.–midnight
Details and advance admission at www.mam.org/afterdark.

Kohl’s Art Generation Family Sundays | The Gift of Art
Sun, Dec. 4, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Impressionism: Pastels, Watercolors, Drawings
By Christopher Lloyd

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.

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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Milwaukee Art Museum originates Taryn Simon survey of three major projects
Artist to visit Museum on Saturday, November 19

Milwaukee, Wis. –  The Milwaukee Art Museum will originate an exhibition of work by New York–based photographer Taryn Simon this Thursday, September 22, 2011.  Simon’s photographs and writings—the result of a long process of research and investigation—present a dizzying array of visual and verbal information.

The exhibition, Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts, is a selective overview of three major projects Simon executed between 2002 and 2010. Collectively displayed, they underscore the invisible space between language and the visual world—a space in which translation and disorientation continually occur.

• The Innocents (2002) questions photography’s function as a credible eyewitness and arbiter of justice through portraits of individuals who were convicted of violent crimes they did not commit.

• An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007) 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.

• Contraband (2010) consists of 1,075 images depicting items detained or seized from passengers entering the United States from abroad over a five-day period, indexed and installed according to their official classification.

“Simon is one of today’s most celebrated young artists. 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,” said Lisa Hostetler, curator of photographs for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “While her seductively beautiful photographs attract the eye, the accompanying texts disclose unexpected—sometimes shocking—details about the subject of the picture. Given a contemporary world rife with images and information, her work speaks to issues that affect us all.”

Simon’s photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo shows at: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the 54th Venice Biennale. Her photography and writing have been featured in numerous publications and broadcasts including the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Ted.com, CNN, BBC, and Frontline.

Simon will be in Milwaukee on Saturday, November 19 for a special Artist Talk and book signing at the Museum. The event begins at 1:30 p.m. and is free with Museum admission.

Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts runs September 22, 2011, through January 1, 2012. It then travels to the Moscow Multimedia Art Museum from January 20 through February 19, 2012, and to the Helsinki Art Museum from March 9 through May 6, 2012.

Sponsored by the Herzfeld Foundation, with additional support from Madeleine and David Lubar, Christine A. Symchych, Tony and Sue Krausen, and the Photography Council, a support group of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

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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Milwaukee Art Museum Acquires Masterpiece of American Art
John Singleton Copley portrait part of larger reinstallation of American Collections Galleries

Milwaukee, Wis. – September 12, 2011 – The Milwaukee Art Museum has acquired the portrait Alice Hooper, a major colonial American painting by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815). Copley is recognized as one of the great American artists of the day—and one of the first native-born painters to achieve success both at home and abroad.

Alice Hooper, painted by Copley around 1763, depicts the seventeen-year-old daughter of the wealthiest man in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Robert “King” Hooper. Alice’s father commissioned this portrait to mark his daughter’s engagement to Jacob Fowle, Jr.

“Alice Hooper displays the traits that made Copley desirable in colonial Boston. Copley’s rendering of her fashionable sacque gown dazzles the eye, with its profusion of glinting blue satin and frothy lace spilling from its underdress,” said William Rudolph, curator of American art and decorative arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “The artist lingered on the highlights of Alice’s ruby earrings and choker, revealing the great wealth of her family. Yet her pensive gaze and half-shadowed face allude to her graciousness; she looks modest, rather than proud.”

According to Rudolph, Alice Hooper’s composition is one of a series of women depicted in fantasy garden settings, which all descend from John Faber’s 1691 engraving after Sir Godfrey Kneller’s Duchess of Grafton (ca. 1680).

The painting also provides vivid evidence of Copley’s working methods. Like many of his colleagues, the artist borrowed costumes and compositions from imported engravings of high-style British portraits. These appropriations were done with the full cooperation of his clients, who wanted to emulate the aristocrats of the mother country.

“The dress itself, although breathtakingly rendered, may not in fact be the property of Miss Hooper, given its remarkable similarity to that worn by several other sitters, and to the artist’s documented habit of copying elaborate gowns from mezzotints,” said Rudolph.

Copley’s work pleased the Hoopers and led to nine additional commissions for members of Alice’s immediate and extended families, securing Copley’s success.

“After winning the Hooper clan’s approval, Copley rocketed into the stratosphere as the go-to artist for fashionable New England—and for clients from as far away as Philadelphia and New York,” Rudolph said.

The acquisition of Alice Hooper coincides with the Museum’s commitment to the expansion of its American art program, including a major reinstallation of its collections in honor of the 125th anniversary of the Museum in 2013.

The purchase was made possible in part by a donation from the estate of Milwaukeeans Leonard and Bebe LeVine, along with the Virginia Booth Vogel Acquisition Fund, with funds in memory of Betty Croasdaile and John E. Julien, and gift by exchange of Chapellier Galleries, the Samuel O. Buckner Collection, and the Max E. Friedmann Bequest.

“The portrait of Alice Hooper will become one of the Museum’s icons of American art,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “This is a significant acquisition for the Museum, and without the generosity of Leonard and Bebe LeVine and others, it would not be possible. With Alice Hooper, and with the reinstallation of the American Collections Galleries on the Museum’s lower level, we are reimagining the scope of American art at the Museum.”

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.

The Emperor’s Private Paradise Closes September 11
Last chance to see never-before-seen objects from the Forbidden City

Milwaukee, Wis. – Following a summer of rave reviews and much praise, the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Summer of CHINA exhibition series is entering its final days. The feature exhibition, The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, is on view through Sunday, September 11, 2011, leaving only a few short weeks to experience these objects outside of China.

The Museum is one of only three museums in the world to showcase over ninety objects of ceremony and leisure—from paintings and garden components to furniture and cloisonné—from the Qianlong Garden and the Forbidden City in Beijing, never before seen by the public.

“The overwhelming public response over The Emperor’s Private Paradise has been inspiring,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Attendance has been higher than expected for this must-see exhibition, and to be able to share this experience with Museum visitors has been a treat.”

A two-acre jewel in the immense 180-acre Forbidden City complex, the Qianlong (pronounced chee’en lohng) Garden is praised for its unique combination of Northern and Southern Chinese garden design elements and interiors. Built in the eighteenth century, the garden complex was part of the Qianlong emperor’s ambitious twelve-acre retreat, commissioned in anticipation of his retirement. Buddhist shrines, open-air gazebos, sitting rooms, libraries, theaters, and gardens were interspersed with bamboo groves and other natural arrangements. In 2001, the Palace Museum and the World Monuments Fund (WMF) began the restoration of the Qianlong Garden’s twenty-seven buildings, pavilions, outdoor elements—and the objects that would later travel to the United States in The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City.

The Museum is the last destination for the exhibition before these treasures are returned to China.

“This is the public’s last chance to see these objects, because once they are back in China, they will be reinstalled in the restored gardens and will not travel again,” said Keegan. “If you haven’t experienced them yet, do it now.”

 
The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City was organized by the Peabody Essex Museum in partnership with the Palace Museum and in cooperation with the World Monuments Fund and has been made possible through generous support from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and American Express. Additional support was provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and by ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations), a program of the U.S. Department of Education.

SPONSORS FOR THE SUMMER OF CHINA
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s Summer of CHINA is presented by BMO Financial Group, Bucyrus, Concordia University Wisconsin, Harley-Davidson Motor Company® and The Harley-Davidson Foundation, Johnson Controls, The Lai Family Foundation, and Rockwell Automation. Additional support is provided by Baird, Brady Corporation, Einhorn Family Foundation, Foley & Lardner LLP, The Freeman Foundation, and M&I Wealth Management, with media sponsorship provided by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Time Warner Cable.

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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Museum receives largest-ever planned gift from Milwaukee’s Leonard and Bebe LeVine

Milwaukee, Wis. – August 18, 2011 – The Milwaukee Art Museum announced a $7.6 million gift from the estate of Milwaukee business owner and his wife, Leonard and Bebe LeVine. The donation, received after Mr. LeVine’s death in 2008, is more than double the previous largest bequest, and is designated to advance and improve the Museum’s art collection and presentation.

 “It is an honor to be the sole beneficiary of the LeVine’s estate. The donation will be used to further the legacy of this remarkable couple, Leonard and Bebe LeVine, who willed these funds to the Museum,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

LeVine was a graduate of Whitefish Bay High School and the University of Pennsylvania, lettering in track at both institutions. He served his country during World War II as a Major in the Army Air Corps. He was also president of Rosenberg’s Department Store, a women’s apparel store. His wife Bebe was a naval officer and Navy photographer during World War II. They were married in 1946 and collected art for their Fox Point home over the years.

“Mr. and Mrs. LeVine appreciated art, and wanted to keep the Milwaukee Art Museum a world-class museum,” said the estate’s executor and longtime family friend Tricia Knight. “Mr. LeVine was clear that this gift be used to keep the Museum a leading institution.”

According to Keegan, the restricted monies will be used for future acquisitions, and as part of the Museum’s long-term strategic plan, a gallery space will be named in the LeVine’s honor.

“Mr. LeVine and his wife spent so much time here at the Museum, we thought it appropriate that future generations of art lovers come to know of the deep generosity of the family,” said Keegan.

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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Milwaukee Art Museum exhibition honors Santiago Calatrava masterpiece

Milwaukee, Wis. – July 25, 2011 – It has been named the sexiest building in the world, featured in TV ads and shows and Hollywood movies, and it has transformed the city of Milwaukee. In September, the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates the 10th anniversary of its iconic building, the Quadracci Pavilion, with the exhibition Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Designed by internationally renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, the Quadracci Pavilion was the Spaniard’s first completed commission in the United States. In 2001, it was named TIME Magazine “Best Design of 2001.”

“The exhibition features watercolors and models by the architect—works of art in themselves—that track the evolution of the building’s design,” said Chief Curator Brady Roberts. “The watercolors have a stream-of-consciousness-like quality, as the imagery flows from humans to sails, to Lake Michigan, to uncanny representations of Windhover Hall, imagined at the very outset of Calatrava’s design process in the mid-1990s. His models reveal the complex development of the moving wings of the Burke Brise Soleil, one of the most spectacular architectural elements in the world.”

Building a Masterpiece further highlights the construction of the entirely custom-made project, a testament to Milwaukee’s tradition of precision manufacturing and craftsmanship, through photographs, drawings, and models. Visitors will also be invited to submit their favorite photographs of the Museum—of its interior as well as its exterior. The best of these will be included in the exhibition, demonstrating how significantly the building has brought a sense of pride in, as well as international attention to, the city.

Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum will be on view September 8, 2011, through January 1, 2012.

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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Chinese Contemporary Warriors Stand in Formation at the Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee, Wis. – July 12, 2011 – The Milwaukee Art Museum is proud to present the installation Chinese Contemporary Warriors by world-renowned contemporary artist Yue Minjun, in conjunction with its Summer of CHINA series of exhibitions. This latest addition to the ambitious CHINA lineup will be on view through December 2011.

“The work of Yue Minjun invites exploration into the relationship between contemporary art and current issues in modern Chinese society,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Yue provides another perspective to what currently comprises the Summer of CHINA experience.”

Yue Minjun, a leading contemporary artist based in Beijing, China, is best known for his self-portrait paintings. Yue casts himself in a variety of large-scale compositions, and always with a grotesquely wide-mouthed, laughing face. Referencing the utopian propaganda of earlier Chinese Social realist paintings, his work creates allegories critical of the Chinese government in works that are humorously laced with cynicism.

“Chinese Contemporary Warriors is a sculptural installation that continues in the same manner of satire,” said Roberts. “Mindlessly happy in their uniformity, the compliant citizens of this absurd army recall the famed terra-cotta warriors from Xian. Rather than the serious visages of the warriors, however, these figures convey ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’”

Chinese Contemporary Warriors is currently on display in the Museum’s Contemporary Galleries on the Main Level.

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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Milwaukee Art Museum Celebrates 3,000 Years of Chinese Art and Culture during the Summer of CHINA

Acclaimed The Emperor’s Private Paradise featured in exhibition series

 Milwaukee, Wis. – This summer, the Milwaukee Art Museum presents five exhibitions on Chinese art and architecture as part of a year-long celebration honoring the ten-year anniversary of the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion. This ambitious exhibition schedule explores three thousand years of Chinese art, and Mayor Tom Barrett has, in turn, declared this summer to be the “Summer of China” in the City of Milwaukee.

The Museum’s feature exhibition for the summer is The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, on through Sunday, September 11, 2011. The Museum is one of only three museums in the world to showcase over ninety objects of ceremony and leisure from the Qianlong Garden and the Forbidden City in Beijing, never before seen by the public.

A two-acre jewel in the immense 180-acre Forbidden City complex, the Qianlong (pronounced chee’en lohng) Garden is praised for its unique combination of Northern and Southern Chinese garden design elements and interiors. Built in the eighteenth century, the garden complex was part of the Qianlong Emperor’s ambitious twelve-acre retreat, commissioned in anticipation of his retirement.  Buddhist shrines, open-air gazebos, sitting rooms, libraries, theaters, and gardens were interspersed with bamboo groves and other natural arrangements. In the garden’s worlds within worlds, the Qianlong Emperor would retreat from affairs of state and meditate in closeted niches, write poetry, study the classics, and delight in his collection and artistic creations.

The garden sat dormant after the last emperor, PuYi, left the Forbidden City in 1924, and the items in it remained unaltered since the end of the Qianlong Emperor’s reign in 1795. In 2001, the Palace Museum and World Monuments Fund (WMF) began the restoration of the Qianlong Garden’s 27 buildings, pavilions, and outdoor elements, including ancient trees and rockeries.

Now for the first time, these objects, including murals, paintings, furniture, architectural and garden components, jades, and cloisonné arts, will leave the sanctity of the Qianlong Garden. The Museum is the last destination for The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, before the objects return to China.

“This is an extraordinary, unprecedented opportunity for the public to see masterpieces from the legendary Forbidden City complex before the objects return to Beijing where they will likely never leave the country again,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “We are honored to be one of only three museums worldwide to present this breathtaking exhibition. It reaffirms our commitment to bringing world-class exhibitions to Milwaukee, and underscores the importance of the Milwaukee Art Museum on the international stage.”

While the objects are in the United States, the Palace Museum and WMF are restoring structures within the Qianlong Garden, and the objects will be permanently housed there. The internationally funded project is expected to be completed by 2019.

The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City was organized by the Peabody Essex Museum in partnership with the Palace Museum and in cooperation with the World Monuments Fund and has been made possible through generous support from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and American Express. Additional support was provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and by ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations), a program of the U.S. Department of Education.

Four additional exhibitions of Chinese art and architecture will be on view during the Museum’s Summer of CHINA celebration. 

“The Museum’s curatorial team has worked tirelessly to bring together a collection of significant modern and ancient Chinese art to share with our visitors,” said Laurie Winters, director of exhibitions for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “The historical significance of the Summer of CHINA is substantial.”

Although not designed as a comprehensive survey, the Summer of CHINA provides a sweeping overview of dynastic art through the centuries, as it explores underlying themes of transformation, innovation, and the technological advances made in various mediums at different periods in Chinese history. A detailed schedule of programming accompanies the exhibition series. For more information, visit mam.org/china.

SCHEDULE OF SUMMER OF CHINA EXHIBITIONS
The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City (June 11, 2011–September 11, 2011) includes over ninety objects of ceremony and leisure from the Qianlong Emperor’s private garden, deep within the Forbidden City. These never-before-seen murals, paintings, furniture, architectural and garden components, jades, and cloisonné reveal the contemplative life and refined vision of one of history’s most influential rulers with artworks from one of the most significant places in the world.

Warriors, Beasts, and Spirits: Early Chinese Art from the James Conley Collection (June 11, 2011–September 11, 2011) highlights include Han and Tang vessels, sculptures as well as accouterments of exquisite carvings in jade, lacquer, wood, bronze, and large-scale architectural components from the Ming period. Lent by James E. Conley, Jr., this large display of more than 40 works of art offers a rare opportunity to view remarkable objects drawn from nearly 3,000 years of China’s creative inspiration.

Emerald Mountains: Modern Chinese Ink Painting from the Chu-tsing Li Collection (June 11, 2011–August 28, 2011) will explore the development of Chinese ink painting during the second half of the 20th century. Drawn from the Chu-tsing Li collection of modern Chinese paintings—the finest and most comprehensive of its kind in the West—these extraordinary paintings demonstrate the reinvigoration of classical techniques and materials by artists throughout Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and abroad working with distinctly contemporary perspectives. 

On Site: Zhan Wang (June 11, 2011–September 11, 2011) will highlight the new world and the old world in a contemporary setting. Zhan Wang has become world famous for his stainless steel copies of “scholars’ rocks” found in classical Chinese gardens. To him, both the original rock and his stainless copy are material forms created for people’s spiritual needs; their different materiality suits different cultural environments at different times.

Way of the Dragon: The Chinoiserie Style, 1710–1830 (June 30, 2011–November 6, 2011) explores how chinoiserie developed, and subsequently degenerated in the eighteenth century. The exhibition investigates and questions the European perceptions of China through decorative arts.

SPONSORS FOR THE SUMMER OF CHINA
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s Summer of CHINA is presented by BMO Financial Group, Bucyrus, Concordia University Wisconsin, Harley-Davidson Motor Company® and The Harley-Davidson Foundation, Johnson Controls, The Lai Family Foundation, and Rockwell Automation. Additional support is provided by Baird, Brady Corporation, Einhorn Family Foundation, Foley & Lardner LLP, The Freeman Foundation, and M&I Wealth Management, with media sponsorship provided by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Time Warner Cable.

ABOUT THE PALACE MUSEUM
The Palace Museum was established on October 10, 1925, in the Forbidden City (the palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties), and houses its collection of treasures. It is a large, comprehensive national museum that embraces the palatial architectural complex, ancient art, and imperial court history. The Palace Museum is dedicated to the conservation of its ancient architecture, collections, and ancient court history through archiving, research, and display so that people from all walks of life may enjoy them.

ABOUT WORLD MONUMENTS FUND
WMF is an international historic preservation organization founded in 1965 and based in New York City. For 45 years, WMF has worked to save and preserve endangered historic sites in all part of the world. These have ranged from iconic sites such as the temples of Angkor, Cambodia, to lesser-known but emblematic ones, such as Marie Antoinette’s private theater in Versailles. (See www.wmf.org)

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.

ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING FOR THE SUMMER OF CHINA
MAM AFTER DARK: CHINA
Friday, June 10, 5 p.m.–midnight
Be the first to experience this realm of majesty and mystery through curator-led tours.
Details and advance admission at www.mam.org/afterdark.
 
LECTURE: THE SURVIVAL AND REVIVAL OF THE EMPEROR’S VISION: THE RESTORATION OF THE QIANLONG GARDEN
Sunday, June 12, 1:30 p.m.
Henry Ng, Executive Vice President, World Monuments Fund
Sponsored by the Fine Arts Society

LAKEFRONT FESTIVAL OF ARTS
Friday–Sunday, June 17–19, 2011
This year’s annual event includes five artists from China, as well as indoor and outdoor vendors, food, music, kids activities, and more. For more information, visit http://lfoa.mam.org/.

LECTURE: WARRIORS, BEASTS, AND SPIRITS FOR ETERNITY: BURIAL PRACTICES IN EARLY CHINA
Thursday, June 23, 6:15 p.m.
Katheryn Linduff, Professor in the History and Art and Archaeology at the University of Pittsburgh
Sponsored by the Fine Arts Society

LECTURE: THE MAN AND HIS IMAGE: QIANLONG’S IMPERIAL PROPAGANDA AND ARTISTIC PURSUITS
Thursday, June 30, 6:15 p.m.
Eugenio Menegon, Professor of History at Boston University
Sponsored by the Fine Arts Society

KOHL’S ART GENERATION FAMILY SUNDAYS | CHINESE TREASURES
Sunday, July 17, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

LECTURE: CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART
Thursday, July 21, 6:15 p.m.
Melissa Chiu, Museum Director and Curator for Contemporary Asian and Asian-American art
Sponsored by the Contemporary Arts Society

CHINESE CULTURAL FESTIVAL
Saturday and Sunday, July 23–24, 2011
Experience art, music, food, entertainment, shopping, and more during this two day event, sponsored by the Milwaukee Chinese Community Center

LECTURE: PALACE TANTRA: EMPEROR QIANLONG’S FASCINATION WITH TIBETAN BUDDHISM
Thursday, August 4, 6:15 p.m.
John Johnston, Coates-Cowden-Brown Curator of Asian Art at the San Antonio Museum of Art
Sponsored by the Fine Arts Society

LECTURE: THE WILD WILD EAST:  CHINA’S CONTEMPORARY ART SCENE
Thursday, August 11, 6:15 p.m.
Barbara Pollack, author of The Wild, Wild East: An American Art Critic’s Adventures in China
Sponsored by the Fine Arts Society

LECTURE: MONSTROUS BEAUTY: THE CHINESE STYLE IN THE NEOCLASSICAL AGE
Thursday, August 25, 6:15 p.m.
David Porter, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan
Sponsored by the American Arts Society and the Chipstone Foundation

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Milwaukee Art Museum to host panel on the politics of art

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum will host a panel discussion on contemporary art and political topics on Thursday, July 7 at 6:15 p.m. in Lubar Auditorium.

Join Melissa Chiu from the Asia Society, New York, and Kathryn Kanjo from the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, among other panelists, as they discuss issues surrounding art and politics, including the recent detention and release of contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

“It is part of our mission to educate and inspire the community, and it is our role to foster dialogue around all art-related issues, including contemporary art,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “I encourage people to come and participate in the discussion.”

“Ai Weiwei: The Collision of Art and Politics” is free to the public, and falls on Target Free First Thursday, when admission to the Museum is free for individuals.

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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The Milwaukee Art Museum hosts Lakefront Festival of Arts June 17-19

Quad/Graphics and Milwaukee Magazine present annual arts showcase

 Milwaukee, Wis. –  The Milwaukee Art Museum’s 2011 Lakefront Festival of Arts (LFOA) will be Friday, June 17, through Sunday, June 19, on the grounds of the Museum along Lake Michigan. The 49th annual LFOA is presented by Quad/Graphics and Milwaukee Magazine.

The family-friendly event is one of the top twenty-five art festivals in the country, featuring work by more than 180 artists, including wearable art and jewelry, paintings, sculpture, home décor, and more. LFOA will also include expanded food offerings from local restaurants, a wine garden, a sculpture garden, and the PNC Children’s Experience, including the Grow Up Great Mobile Learning Adventure where kids can dress up as different professionals and take home fun activity books and learning kits. Families can also visit and participate in Milwaukee Public Schools’ fence art installation featuring unique works of art, or interact with face painters, jugglers, and magicians.

This year’s festival poster artist is South Korean-born Seung Lee. Lee’s multicolor woodblock print entitled Watertown will be featured on apparel and on merchandise, including a poster available in the festival boutique.  Lee began his art career as a painter, which inspired him to approach the traditional woodcut differently, and makes for a very painterly effect in his work.

For the second consecutive year, LFOA artists will also be exhibiting inside the Museum, and the festival will be open until 9 p.m. on Friday. In addition, five juried artists from China will be travelling to Milwaukee to display and sell their artworks at LFOA.

“We are honored to welcome these five artists to our Milwaukee lakefront during the Summer of CHINA to display their works of art alongside the more than 180 artists from around the country at LFOA,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “It’s a testament to LFOA that it continues to offer museum-quality art for purchase, and  year after year, the festival  draws large crowds of people of all ages and interests to the Museum.”

This year’s LFOA attendees will also be among the first to experience the Museum’s Summer of CHINA, an ambitious schedule of five concurrent exhibitions covering 3,000 years of Chinese art and architecture. The feature exhibition for the Summer of CHINA is The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City. Milwaukee is the final destination for the more than 90 objects of ceremony and leisure from private retreat of the Qianlong Emperor before they return to China, never to leave again.

The Museum is one of only three museums in the world to showcase these never-before-seen objects, which include murals, paintings, furniture, architectural and garden components, jades, and cloisonné arts.

In honor of the significance of this exhibition schedule for the Museum, as well as the City’s close ties with China, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has declared the summer of 2011 to be the “Summer of China” in the City of Milwaukee.

“LFOA is a must-experience event, with art, music, food, and family entertainment,” said Keegan. “Combined with the stunning Summer of CHINA exhibitions, I look forward to sharing in the festival with our artists and guests.”

LFOA admission is $8 in advance, $14 at the gate, or $20 for a three-day pass. Tickets can be purchased online and at participating locations throughout Southeastern Wisconsin. Festival hours are:

• Friday, June 17 — 12 p.m. to 9 p.m.
• Saturday, June 18 — 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Sunday, June 19— 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

LFOA is presented by Quad/Graphics and Milwaukee Magazine and sponsored in part by PNC, MillerCoors, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Hawks Nursery, Fields Automotive, Potawatomi Bingo Casino, Sommer’s Automotive, Renewal by Andersen and Inet-PC-Web.

About Lakefront Festival of Arts
The Lakefront Festival of Arts (LFOA) is one of the premier art festivals in the country, featuring artists from across the nation with art for sale in a variety of media, including paintings, sculptures, jewelry, photography, printmaking, wood, ceramics, fiber, and more. Since 1962, the Lakefront Festival of Arts has been a primary fundraiser for the Milwaukee Art Museum and organized with the help of Friends of Art volunteers. For more information on LFOA, please visit http://lfoa.mam.org/.

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.

About Friends of Art
The Friends of Art (FOA) is the primary volunteer support organization of the Milwaukee Art Museum. FOA raises funds in support of the Museum and develops activities to stimulate visual art appreciation and inspire volunteer leadership. Over 1,300 individuals volunteer annually to help organize and operate FOA’s fundraising events. Over $7 million has been generated through FOA events since it was founded in 1957. For more information on FOA, please visit www.mam.org/involved/details/foa.php.

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The Milwaukee Art Museum’s mission is to serve the community and present art as a vital source of inspiration and education.  Through exhibitions and related programs, we are committed to bring people together to inform, educate and engage in conversation around art.

To that end, we have lectures and panels scheduled in conjunction with the Summer of CHINA exhibitions that provide historical context, explore important aspects of 3,000 years of Chinese culture, and deal with contemporary issues.

Included in the summer schedule is a panel discussion on the politics of art, additional speakers this summer include Melissa Chiu, from the Asia Society and author Barbara Pollack.

The Museum, as a cultural institution, does not support censorship, including self-censorship, of art exhibitions or artists based on unpopular or controversial subjects.   We invite the public to experience the exhibitions and to attend the programs.

Target Free First Thursdays is June 2

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s monthly Target Free First Thursday for June is Thursday, June 2.

Target Free First Thursdays provides individuals 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 July 7, and August 4.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Dan Keegan. “Thanks to this fantastic partnership with Target, even more people can visit the Museum free of charge. In these difficult economic times, it is imperative that the Museum’s programming surrounding the arts, culture and family literacy be as accessible to as many people as possible.” 

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.”

HOURS AND ADMISSION
The Museum is open Monday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Admission is $14 for adults, $12 for students and seniors, and is free for Members, children 12 and under, and active military and their families (with ID).

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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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Milwaukee Art Museum to Participate in Blue Star Museums
Active duty military and their families receive free admission all summer long, seven days a week

Milwaukee, Wis. – Today the Milwaukee Art Museum announced its participation in the 2011 Blue Star Museums program to offer free Museum admission to all active military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Blue Star Museums is a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families, and more than 1,300 museums across America to benefit America’s active duty servicemen and women.

“The Blue Star Museum program is a small way of saying thank you to all the men and women who selflessly serve our country,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “This program is a wonderful way to give back to those who sacrifice so much for us while providing them with an opportunity to experience all that the Museum has to offer.”

The Milwaukee Art Museum will officially launch the program on Monday, May 30, 2011. This will coincide with expanded summer hours for the Museum, which will be open Monday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (8 p.m. on Thursdays), from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

“Last year, the success of the inaugural year of the Blue Star Museums program showed that partnerships between nation’s museums and military communities are natural,” said Blue Star Families Chairman Kathy Roth-Duquet. “We are thrilled that 300,000 military family members visited our partner museums in the summer of 2010. We hope to exceed that number this year as the military community takes advantage of the rich cultural heritage they defend and protect every day.”

This year, more than 1,300 museums in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa are taking part in the initiative, including 500 new museums this year. This year’s Blue Star Museums represent not just fine arts museums, but also science museums, history museums, nature centers, and 70 children’s museums.

Beginning in June, the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates the Summer of CHINA, which will feature five simultaneous exhibitions on Chinese art and architecture spanning three thousand years. The centerpiece will be The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition featuring over 90 objects from the Qianlong Garden in Beijing, never before seen by the public.

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.

ABOUT BLUE STAR MUSEUMS
Blue Star Museums runs from Memorial Day, May 30, 2011 through to Labor Day, September 5, 2011.  The free admission program is available to active-duty military and their immediate family members (military ID holder and five immediate family members).  Active duty military include Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and active duty National Guard and active duty Reserve members.  Some special or limited-time museum exhibits may not be included in this free admission program.  For questions on particular exhibits or museums, please contact the museum directly.  To find out which museums are participating, visit
www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums. 

ABOUT BLUE STAR FAMILIES
Blue Star Families is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit network of military families from all ranks and services, including guard and reserve, with a mission to support, connect and empower military families. In addition to morale and empowerment programs, Blue Star Families raises awareness of the challenges and strengths of military family life and works to make military life more sustainable. Membership includes military spouses, children and parents as well as service members, veterans and civilians.
To learn more about Blue Star Families, visit www.bluestarfam.org.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS
The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. To join the discussion on how art works, visit the NEA at arts.gov.

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Museum to host discussion on controversial “A Fire in My Belly” featuring Jonathan D. Katz
Gay rights groups call ‘foul’ at Smithsonian decision to censor exhibition

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum will host a discussion about the controversy surrounding the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture on Thursday, May 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Lubar Auditorium. The discussion will focus on the removal of “A Fire in My Belly,” a video by artist David Wojnarowicz and will feature Jonathan D. Katz, the co-curator of the exhibition and Chair of the Visual Studies Doctoral Program at SUNY Buffalo. The event is free with Museum admission and open to the public.

In October 2010, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC opened Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture. Spanning the turn of the twentieth century through the emergence of the modern gay liberation movement in 1969 to the present, including the tragedies of the AIDS epidemic, the exhibition explores the influence of gay and lesbian artists in creating American modernism.

The exhibition, which has been praised for its groundbreaking scholarship, was open for two months when it became the focus of a heated controversy. A video in the exhibition entitled “A Fire in My Belly” by artist David Wojnarowicz was removed after pressure from the Catholic League and various members of Congress objected to a brief scene of ants crawling on a crucifix, which was criticized as being Christian “hate speech.”

Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough said that he ordered the video pulled because it was distracting from the rest of the exhibition. Critics of the removal countered that it was an act of censorship and was instigated due to the subject matter of the exhibition and the inappropriate pressure from Congress, who must approve funds for the Smithsonian.

“The imagery is part of a surrealistic video collage filmed in Mexico expressing the suffering, marginalization and physical decay of those who were afflicted with AIDS. A moving, personal expression by Wojnarowicz, who was dying of AIDS at the time, the video also shows challenging and disturbing images of a meat packing plant, objects on fire and the artist undressing himself,” said Laurie Winters, director of exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “In keeping with its mission of promoting the arts and examining their impact on society, the Milwaukee Art Museum is pleased to host a discussion on the removal of the video from the exhibition as a way to further dialogue on the subject and promote education on current issues in contemporary art.”

The program is sponsored by the Cream City Foundation’s Joseph R. Pabst LGBT Infrastructure Fund with support from the Fine Arts Society of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

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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Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition closes Sunday, May 15
Last chance to see this “don’t miss” show

Milwaukee, Wis. – Museum visitors have just a few days left to see the visually-entralling exhibition on Frank Lloyd Wright. With over one hundred rare drawings—including more than thirty never before seen by the public—scale models, furniture, photo enlargements, and rare video footage, Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century explores the principles of Wright’s architecture and their relevance today. The exhibition closes on Sunday, May 15.

Reflecting on Wright’s impact during his lifetime and his significance today, the exhibition highlights the many triumphs of Wright’s career and focus on his grand opus of suburban planning, Living City (1958) which, though never realized, was the culmination of all his work.

“Throughout his career, Wright spoke of his organic architecture in terms of time, place, and people. In relation to time, Wright was specifically interested in technological innovation, particularly in how the advances of the day allowed him new freedoms as an architect,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Regarding place and people, the surrounding landscape and local resources always influenced Wright’s designs and materials, whether for family residence, workplace, or urban plan. He wanted to connect with new technology and use it to advance his architecture.”

Wright also designed furniture, fabrics, art glass, lamps, dinnerware, silver, linens, and graphic arts, which are also featured in the exhibition.  Wright was a prolific writer, an educator, and philosopher, authoring twenty books and countless articles, lecturing throughout the United States and Europe, and developing remarkable plans for urban living that continue to be examined by modern architects.

 “Wright was a prophetic thinker, decades ahead of his peers. In many ways, key aspects of his career relate to issues and practices of architecture today, including sustainability and efficiency,” said Roberts. “In examining Wright’s concern with material and space efficiency, economical use of manufactured materials, attention to local environment, and use of natural light, we see his profound contribution as a visionary for architectural practice in the twenty-first century.”

Wisconsin is an exceptional resource for exploring Wright-designed buildings, including Wright’s home and studio in Spring Green, known as Taliesin. The exhibition also explores local Wright sites in Milwaukee and Racine.

“Milwaukee has Burnham Street, the Bogk House, the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, and nearby buildings like the Johnson Wax Administration Building and Wingspread in Racine,” said Roberts. “With his home in Oak Park and Taliesin in Spring Green both only a short drive away, Milwaukee is the central starting point for Wright enthusiasts to experience his organic vision.”

In conjunction with the exhibition and in partnership with Kohl’s, the Museum has opened the Kohl’s Art Generation Gallery “Just the WRIGHT Size,” where kids can come create their own architectural masterpieces with wood and foam blocks, draw, and enjoy a miniature Wright-inspired dollhouse.  Activities in both the Kohl’s Art Generation Gallery and the Kohl’s Art Generation studio are free.

Admission to the Museum is $14 for adults, $12 for seniors and students, and children age 12 and under are free. The Museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and until 8 p.m. on Thursdays.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale. The exhibition will travel to the Phoenix Art Museum in 2012.

ABOUT FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) spent more than 70 years creating designs that revolutionized the art and architecture of the 20th century. In all, he designed 1,141 works—including houses, offices, churches, schools, libraries, bridges and museums. Of that total, 532 resulted in completed works, 409 of which still stand. Wright also designed furniture, fabrics, art glass, lamps, dinnerware, silver, linens and graphic arts. In addition, he was a prolific writer, an educator and a philosopher. He authored 20 books and countless articles, lectured throughout the United States and in Europe, and developed a remarkable plan for decentralizing urban America that continues to be debated by scholars and writers to this day.

EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century is sponsored by SC Johnson Fund and PNC, with the Figge Foundation and Thomas K. Figge. Additional generous support is provided by Andy Nunemaker, the Dorothy W. Inbusch Foundation, the Ruth St. John and John Dunham West Foundation, and the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

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 Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City Coming to Milwaukee
Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates 3,000 years of Chinese art during the Summer of CHINA

Milwaukee, Wis. – This summer, the Milwaukee Art Museum presents five exhibitions on Chinese art and architecture as part of a year-long celebration honoring the ten-year anniversary of the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion. This ambitious exhibition schedule explores three thousand years of Chinese art, and Mayor Tom Barrett has, in turn, declared this summer to be the “Summer of China” in the City of Milwaukee.

The Museum’s feature exhibition for the summer is The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, on view June 11 through September 11, 2011. The Museum is one of only three museums in the world to showcase over ninety objects of ceremony and leisure from the Qianlong Garden and the Forbidden City in Beijing, never before seen by the public.

A two-acre jewel in the immense 180-acre Forbidden City complex, the Qianlong (pronounced chee’en lohng) Garden is praised for its unique combination of Northern and Southern Chinese garden design elements and interiors. Built in the eighteenth century, the garden complex was part of the Qianlong Emperor’s ambitious twelve-acre retreat, commissioned in anticipation of his retirement.  Buddhist shrines, open-air gazebos, sitting rooms, libraries, theaters, and gardens were interspersed with bamboo groves and other natural arrangements. In the garden’s worlds within worlds, the Qianlong Emperor would retreat from affairs of state and meditate in closeted niches, write poetry, study the classics, and delight in his collection and artistic creations.

The garden sat dormant after the last emperor, PuYi, left the Forbidden City in 1924, and the items in it remained unaltered since the end of the Qianlong Emperor’s reign in 1795. In 2001, the Palace Museum and World Monuments Fund (WMF) began the restoration of the Qianlong Garden’s 27 buildings, pavilions, and outdoor elements, including ancient trees and rockeries.

Now for the first time, these objects, including murals, paintings, furniture, architectural and garden components, jades, and cloisonné arts, will leave the sanctity of the Qianlong Garden. The Museum is the last destination for The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, before the objects return to China.

“This is an extraordinary, unprecedented opportunity for the public to see masterpieces from the legendary Forbidden City complex before the objects return to Beijing where they will likely never leave the country again,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “We are honored to be one of only three museums worldwide to present this breathtaking exhibition. It reaffirms our commitment to bringing world-class exhibitions to Milwaukee, and underscores the importance of the Milwaukee Art Museum on the international stage.”

While the objects are in the United States, the Palace Museum and WMF are restoring structures within the Qianlong Garden, and the objects will be permanently housed there. The internationally funded project is expected to be completed by 2019.

The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City was organized by the Peabody Essex Museum in partnership with the Palace Museum and in cooperation with the World Monuments Fund and has been made possible through generous support from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and American Express. Additional support was provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and by ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations), a program of the U.S. Department of Education.

Four additional exhibitions of Chinese art and architecture will be on view during the Museum’s Summer of CHINA celebration. 

“The Museum’s curatorial team has worked tirelessly to bring together a collection of significant modern and ancient Chinese art to share with our visitors,” said Laurie Winters, director of exhibitions for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “The historical significance of the Summer of CHINA is substantial.”

Although not designed as a comprehensive survey, the Summer of CHINA provides a sweeping overview of dynastic art through the centuries, as it explores underlying themes of transformation, innovation, and the technological advances made in various mediums at different periods in Chinese history.

“Collectively, these five exhibitions put the Milwaukee Art Museum at center stage for notable social, political, and spiritual Chinese art in 2011,” said Winters.

SCHEDULE OF SUMMER OF CHINA EXHIBITIONS
The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City (June 11, 2011–September 11, 2011) includes over ninety objects of ceremony and leisure from the Qianlong Emperor’s private garden, deep within the Forbidden City. These never-before-seen murals, paintings, furniture, architectural and garden components, jades, and cloisonné reveal the contemplative life and refined vision of one of history’s most influential rulers with artworks from one of the most significant places in the world.

Warriors, Beasts, and Spirits: Early Chinese Art from the James Conley Collection (June 11, 2011–September 11, 2011) highlights include Han and Tang vessels, sculptures as well as accouterments of exquisite carvings in jade, lacquer, wood, bronze, and large-scale architectural components from the Ming period. Lent by James E. Conley, Jr., this large display of more than 40 works of art offers a rare opportunity to view remarkable objects drawn from nearly 5,000 years of China’s creative inspiration.

Emerald Mountains: Modern Chinese Ink Painting from the Chu-tsing Li Collection (June 11, 2011–August 28, 2011) will explore the development of Chinese ink painting during the second half of the 20th century. Drawn from the Chu-tsing Li collection of modern Chinese paintings—the finest and most comprehensive of its kind in the West—these extraordinary paintings demonstrate the reinvigoration of classical techniques and materials by artists throughout Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and abroad working with distinctly contemporary perspectives. 

On Site: Zhan Wang (June 11, 2011–September 11, 2011) will highlight the new world and the old world in a contemporary setting. Zhan Wang has become world famous for his stainless steel copies of “scholars’ rocks” found in classical Chinese gardens. To him, both the original rock and his stainless copy are material forms created for people’s spiritual needs; their different materiality suits different cultural environments at different times.

Way of the Dragon: The Chinoiserie Style, 1710–1830 (June 30, 2011–November 6, 2011) explores how chinoiserie developed, and subsequently degenerated in the eighteenth century. The exhibition investigates and questions the European perceptions of China through decorative arts.

SPONSORS FOR THE SUMMER OF CHINA
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s Summer of CHINA is presented by BMO Financial Group, Bucyrus, Concordia University Wisconsin, Harley-Davidson Motor Company and The Harley-Davidson Foundation, Johnson Controls, The Lai Family Foundation, and Rockwell Automation. Additional support is provided by Baird, Brady Corporation, Einhorn Family Foundation, Foley & Lardner LLP, The Freeman Foundation, and M&I Wealth Management.

ABOUT THE PALACE MUSEUM
The Palace Museum was established on October 10, 1925, in the Forbidden City (the palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties), and houses its collection of treasures. It is a large, comprehensive national museum that embraces the palatial architectural complex, ancient art, and imperial court history. The Palace Museum is dedicated to the conservation of its ancient architecture, collections, and ancient court history through archiving, research, and display so that people from all walks of life may enjoy them.

ABOUT WORLD MONUMENTS FUND
WMF is an international historic preservation organization founded in 1965 and based in New York City. For 45 years, WMF has worked to save and preserve endangered historic sites in all part of the world. These have ranged from iconic sites such as the temples of Angkor, Cambodia, to lesser-known but emblematic ones, such as Marie Antoinette’s private theater in Versailles. (See www.wmf.org)

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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Target Free First Thursdays is April 7

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s monthly Target Free First Thursday for April is on Thursday, April 7. Admission is free for individuals, and visitors will have the opportunity to see Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century, as well as the option to attend a 30-minute, docent-led Express Talk of the exhibition at 5:30 p.m. and an Artist Talk with Colleen Plumb at 6:15 p.m.

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 May 5, June 2, July 7, and August 4.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum director Dan Keegan. “Thanks to this fantastic partnership with Target, even more people can visit the Museum free of charge. In these difficult economic times, it is imperative that the Museum’s programming surrounding the arts, culture and family literacy be as accessible to as many people as possible.” 

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.”

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 $14 for adults and $12 for students, seniors and active military, and is free for members and children 12 and under. 

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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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Fourth Annual “Art in Bloom” Event Premieres Milwaukee’s Calatrava™ Rose

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 31–April 3, 2011. This year’s Art in Bloom premieres Milwaukee’s Calatrava™ rose, an intoxicatingly fragrant, double-flower white rose grown by native Milwaukeean and Knock Out ® rose breeder Bill Radler.

The rose celebrates the tenth anniversary of the landmark addition of the Milwaukee Art Museum designed by the internationally renowned architect, Santiago Calatrava. Milwaukee’s Calatrava rose flowers almost continually from spring through frost, and the slightly ruffled petals become tinged with a hint of pink as cooler weather sets in.

The Museum will be selling Milwaukee’s Calatrava roses at this year’s Art in Bloom, and a special Calatrava Rose Garden has been planted on the south campus of the Museum.

“We are honored to premiere the stunning Milwaukee’s Calatrava rose at Art in Bloom,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “It is a beautiful addition to the Museum grounds, and something special for Art in Bloom lovers to plant in their own gardens.”

The rose is available to order at Art in Bloom while supplies last.

ABOUT ART IN BLOOM
Showcasing the talents of over forty renowned floral designers interpreting masterworks from the Museum’s Collection, 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 Art in Bloom exhibition and programs include lectures and presentations with celebrity floral designers and master gardeners Neil Diboll, Brad Harnisch, Melinda Myers, Gayla Trail, and many others. Visitors will also enjoy an expanded multi-vendor indoor marketplace, with original garden sculptures, and floral-inspired dining at Café Calatrava. A complete schedule of lectures, events, and ticket information can be found at mam.org/bloom.

Support for Art in Bloom is provided by Sommer’s Subaru, the Milwaukee Art  Museum Garden Club, the Barbara C. Strecker Memorial Fund, LandWorks, Inc. and Kanavas, with special thanks to Milwaukee Public Schools. The co-chairs of Art in Bloom are Marcia Ferguson Velde and Nancy Hayer. The president of the Milwaukee Art Museum Garden Club is Carol Bessler.

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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Put away your texting thumbs; Get out your green thumbs
Fourth annual Art in Bloom event premieres Milwaukee’s Calatrava™ Rose

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 31–April 3, 2011.

This year’s Art in Bloom premieres Milwaukee’s Calatrava™ rose, a breed grown by native Milwaukeean Bill Radler. He named the lemony-scented white rose after Santiago Calatrava, the architect of the Quadracci Pavilion addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Museum will be selling Calatrava roses, which bloom throughout the growing season, at this year’s Art in Bloom, and a special Calatrava Rose Garden has been planted on the south campus of the Museum, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Quadracci Pavilion.

Showcasing the talents of over 40 renowned floral designers interpreting masterworks from the Museum’s Collection, 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. Visitors will also have the opportunity to see the Museum’s feature exhibition, Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century, the inspiration for the special landscaping of the Museum’s Windhover Hall.

“We are honored to premiere the stunning Milwaukee’s Calatrava rose at Art in Bloom,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “It is a beautiful addition to the Museum grounds, and something special for Art in Bloom lovers to plant in their own gardens.”

The Art in Bloom exhibition and programs include lectures and presentations with celebrity floral designers and master gardeners Neil Diboll, Brad Harnisch, Melinda Myers, Gayla Trail, and many others. Visitors will also enjoy an expanded multi-vendor indoor marketplace, with original garden sculptures, and floral-inspired dining at Café Calatrava. A complete schedule of lectures, events, and ticket information can be found at mam.org/bloom.

Support for Art in Bloom is provided by Sommer’s Subaru, the Milwaukee Art Museum Garden Club, the Barbara C. Strecker Memorial Fund, LandWorks, Inc. and Kanavas, with special thanks to Milwaukee Public Schools. The co-chairs of Art in Bloom are Marcia Ferguson Velde and Nancy Hayer. The president of the Milwaukee Art Museum Garden Club is Carol Bessler.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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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Milwaukee Art Museum hires new Curator of American Art

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum has welcomed William Keyse Rudolph as its new Curator of American Art and Decorative Arts. 

Rudolph has a distinguished career, coming to Milwaukee from the Worcester Art Museum where he was Curator of American Art since 2009. Prior to that, he was the Associate Curator of American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, and Associate/Research Coordinator in European Decorative Arts after 1700 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Rudolph received his M.A. in Art History from the University of Virginia with an emphasis in 18th-Century Art, and Modern Art and received his Ph.D. in Art History from Bryn Mawr College in the fields of Colonial and Federal American Art and Victorian Painting. His dissertation was on Jean-Joseph Vaudechamp (1790-1864), a nineteenth-century French portraitist who commuted between Paris and New Orleans in the 1830s. 

 “We are thrilled to add William to our cadre of extraordinary curators,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Museum. “His knowledge, experience and skills will benefit not only the Museum, its members and visitors, but our community as a whole.”

New to the Milwaukee area, Rudolph is already enjoying the lake, the diverse neighborhoods within the city, the downtown architecture, and the restaurants.

“The Museum exudes tangible, exciting energy, ambition and quality in its programming, exhibitions, campus, and plans for showcasing its collections,” said Rudolph. “For a curator, it’s an exciting time to join an institution that already has an enviable reputation but is definitely on the way up. The Museum has become the icon of the city and I’m just hoping to be able to help keep Milwaukee proud of its Museum.”

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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NEW KOHL’S ART GENERATION EXHIBITION AT MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
PUTS ARCHITECTURE IN KIDS’ HANDS
Interactive “Just the WRIGHT Size” Exhibit Opens March 12, 2011 in Kohl’s Art Generation Education Gallery at Milwaukee Art Museum

MILWAUKEE, March 11, 2011 –The Kohl’s Art Generation Education Gallery at the Milwaukee Art Museum presents “Just the WRIGHT Size: Designing and Building Small Houses,” from March 12, 2011 to January 2, 2012, in conjunction with the Museum’s feature exhibition, “Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century.” The exhibit is part of the Kohl’s Art Generation program, a partnership between Kohl’s Department Stores and Milwaukee Art Museum funded by a $2.7 million donation from the Kohl’s Cares® cause merchandise program, which sells special merchandise and donates 100 percent of the net profit to benefit children’s health and education initiatives nationwide.

Wright, a celebrated and prolific architect from Wisconsin, designed a wide variety of buildings that reflect his unique principles of organic architecture. In “Just the WRIGHT Size: Designing and Building Small Houses” in the Kohl’s Art Generation Education Gallery, children and their families can explore Wright’s designs for small houses and the principles he developed.

“Kohl’s is committed to supporting children’s health and education initiatives in the communities we serve,” noted Julie Gardner, Kohl’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “We are proud of our ongoing partnership with the Milwaukee Art Museum and of the Kohl’s Art Generation program’s role in expanding and enhancing art education for children.”

March 12 also marks the launch of the new, multimedia Kohl’s Art Generation iPod Touch Tour that lets kids interact with 68 objects throughout the Museum. The Kohl’s Art Generation iPod Touch Tour provides children with an interactive experience via videos, games, scavenger hunts, and recordings of artists to lend a deeper appreciation and greater understanding of art. The tour, which is free with paid Museum admission, is designed for kids 12 and younger.

“Generous support from Kohl’s Cares® in recent years has allowed us to enrich our ongoing family-oriented offerings,” said Milwaukee Art Museum Director Dan Keegan. “The new exhibit and iPod Touch Tour are the latest, stellar examples of our partnership because they allow children to experience architectural concepts and to engage with our art collection in innovative ways.”

The upcoming year will also bring exciting changes to Milwaukee Art Museum’s physical space, thanks to the Kohl’s Art Generation program. In 2012, the Kohl’s Education Center will open, featuring the Kohl’s Art Generation Open Studio, the Kohl’s Art Generation Virtual Lab and a new and improved Education Gallery with 2,600 square feet of space for interactive exhibitions, designed especially for children.

The Kohl’s Art Generation Education Gallery is open during regular Museum hours, which are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, with extended hours until 8 p.m. Thursdays. The studio is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays. Access to these areas is free with Museum admission, which is $14 for adults and $12 for students over age 12. Kids 12 and under and Museum members are free. Classes are available Saturdays in the studio for a fee. Call 414-224-3803 for class details and registration.

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 1,097 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 20,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum’s strengths are 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 “Best Design of 2001.”

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Milwaukee Art Museum Premieres Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition
Innovative Exhibition Will Showcase Wright’s Visionary Ideas for Utopian Living

Milwaukee, Wis. – On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, studio and school in Spring Green, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Art Museum will present a major exhibition offering a fresh perspective on celebrated architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright’s seven-decade career. The exhibition will run from February 12 through May 15, 2011.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century surveys more than 150 works, including drawings —33 of which have never been exhibited publicly— scale models, furniture, and photography as well as video footage of Wright and several key projects.  Reflecting on Wright’s impact during his lifetime and his significance today, the retrospective will highlight the many triumphs of Wright’s career and focus on his grand opus of suburban planning, Living City (1958) which, though never realized, was the culmination of all his work. This blueprint for Wright’s urban utopia vision incorporated the natural environment into everyday life.

“Wright defined organic architecture as being appropriate to ‘place, people and time’ and designed around those elements. He wanted to connect with new technology and use it to advance his architecture,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Wright’s design for suburban communities integrated nature, affordable homes, enlightened workspaces, parking, and other aspects of daily living, all in a repeatable model.”

Examining major projects including Unity Temple (Oak Park, Illinois, 1905), Fallingwater (Mill Run, Pennsylvania, 1936), Johnson Wax (Racine, Wisconsin, 1936, known today as the SC Johnson Administration Building), Taliesin (1911–59), and Taliesin West (Scottsdale, Arizona, 1937–59), the exhibition will analyze Wright’s objectives and illuminate the pioneering vision of the man known as America’s greatest architect.

“Wright was a prophetic thinker, decades ahead of his peers. In many ways, key aspects of his career relate to issues and practices of architecture today, including sustainability and efficiency,” said Roberts. “In examining Wright’s concern with material and space efficiency, economical use of manufactured materials, attention to local environment, and use of natural light, we see his profound contribution as a visionary for architectural practice in the twenty-first century.”

Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale. The exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates the centennial of Taliesin in 2011, which is also the 10th anniversary of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion. The exhibition will travel to Phoenix Art Museum in 2012.

ABOUT FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) spent more than 70 years creating designs that revolutionized the art and architecture of the 20th century. In all, he designed 1,141 works—including houses, offices, churches, schools, libraries, bridges and museums. Of that total, 532 resulted in completed works, 409 of which still stand. Wright also designed furniture, fabrics, art glass, lamps, dinnerware, silver, linens and graphic arts. In addition, he was a prolific writer, an educator and a philosopher. He authored 20 books and countless articles, lectured throughout the United States and in Europe, and developed a remarkable plan for decentralizing urban America that continues to be debated by scholars and writers to this day.

RELATED PROGRAMS
The Museum will present a symposium and lectures on architecture, special events with visiting architects, and a self-guided tour of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Wisconsin, highlighting his most significant projects in Milwaukee and Racine. For more information, visit the exhibition website at http://www.mam.org/frank-lloyd-wright/

EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century is sponsored by SC Johnson Fund and PNC, with the Figge Foundation and Thomas K. Figge. Additional generous support is provided by Andy Nunemaker, the Dorothy W. Inbusch Foundation, the Ruth St. John and John Dunham West Foundation, and the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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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Target Free First Thursdays is March 3
First free opportunity to see new Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s monthly Target Free First Thursday for March is on March 3. Admission is free for individuals, and visitors will have the opportunity to see Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century, as well as the option to attend a 30-minute, docent-led Express Talk of the exhibition at 5:30 p.m. and a lecture on Mrs. Olgivanna Lloyd Wright at 6:15 p.m.

This is the last chance to see the Framing a Decade exhibition on a free Thursday, and as always, the Museum’s Collection Galleries will be open for viewing.

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 April 7, May 5, June 2, July 7, and August 4.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our visitors,” said Museum Director Dan Keegan. “Thanks to this fantastic partnership with Target, even more people can visit the Museum free of charge. In these difficult economic times, it is imperative that the Museum’s programming surrounding the arts, culture and family literacy be as accessible to as many people as possible.” 

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.”

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 $14 for adults and $12 for students, seniors and active military, and is free for members and children 12 and under. 

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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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Art Museums Up the Ante on the Biggest Game of the Year
Carnegie Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum bet on their team to win

January 27, 2011 – In keeping with the tradition of friendly wagers, Carnegie Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum are venturing temporary loans of major works of art, based on the outcome of Super Bowl XLV between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers.

The stakes: A temporary loan of Milwaukee Art Museum’s prized Boating on the Yerres by Gustave Caillebotte, wagered by Director and avid Packer fan Daniel Keegan, and a temporary loan of the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Bathers with Crab, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, wagered by Lynn Zelevansky, The Henry J. Heinz II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art, and a proud member of the Steelers nation. The winning city will receive a major work on loan, albeit temporarily, from the city that loses the big game. 

“I’m confident that we will be enjoying the Renoir from Carnegie Museum of Art very soon. I look forward to displaying it where the public can enjoy it and be reminded of the superiority of the Green Bay Packers,” said Keegan of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

“In Pittsburgh, we believe trash talk is bad form. We let the excellence of our football team, and our collection, speak for itself. It will be my great pleasure to see the Caillebotte from the Milwaukee Art Museum hang in our galleries,” said Zelevansky, of Carnegie Museum of Art.

Super Bowl XLV will be played Sunday, February 6, at 5:30 p.m. (CST) in Dallas, Texas. Dates of the loan are still being finalized.

ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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 CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART
Located at 4400 Forbes Avenue in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art was founded by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1895. One of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, it is nationally and internationally recognized for its distinguished collection of American and European works from the 16th century to the present. The Heinz Architectural Center, part of Carnegie Museum of Art, is dedicated to enhancing understanding of the physical environment through its exhibitions, collections, and public programs. For more information, please visit www.cmoa.org.

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Prendergast Works Loaned to Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee, Wis. – A selection of important objects by artist Charles Prendergast (1863–1948) will be on display starting Thursday, January 27.

To frame historians, the name Charles Prendergast is a hallowed one. To art historians, he is a fascinating but elusive early American modern artist. To many, he is simply painter Maurice Prendergast’s younger brother. Through the generosity of the Terra Foundation for American Art, three important works by Charles Prendergast temporarily join the Maurice Prendergast paintings in the Museum’s Collection.

Charles Prendergast, already an established Arts and Crafts frame maker, embarked on an ambitious second career as a painter and sculptor in his fifties. He continued in this profession for thirty-six years, producing works such as the painted panel Four Figures and Donkey and the carved Chest.

“Prendergast blurred the boundaries of decorative design and high art even more than his Arts and Crafts contemporaries. Prendergast abandoned an object’s utilitarian form and morphed it into a fragile, aesthetic artwork,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “He developed his unusual art-making technique from centuries-old frame-making methods and produced delicate gilded and painted surfaces that he intentionally left unsealed and exposed.”

The uncommon qualities of Prendergast’s work—his inventive methods, his esoteric use of symbols and meaning, his archaic and primitive compositions—all speak to the exploratory spirit of early Modernists, beginning with Paul Gauguin. Yet, these same characteristics describe an art so rare that Charles Prendergast remains almost without peer and dwells on the periphery of art history.

With a grant from the Terra Foundation, the Museum will provide several opportunities to investigate this fascinating artist and his elusive creations, including gallery talks, an opening night lecture, and a symposium.

The extended loan of this artwork is made possible with support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.

OPENING RECEPTION AND LECTURE:
CHARLES PRENDERGAST DISPLAY
THURS, JAN 27, 5:30 PM | LECTURE: 6:15 PM
With Nancy Mowll Mathews, curator at Williams College Museum of Art

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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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Milwaukee Art Museum/A.V. Club Milwaukee T-Shirt CONTEST

Calling all artists! The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Onion’s A.V. Club Milwaukee are sponsoring a t-shirt design contest. We’re looking for a vibrant design that can be used on a t-shirt and sold in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Museum Store, starting in the summer of 2011.

THE RULES

Design a t-shirt for the Milwaukee Art Museum based on the question “What does the Milwaukee Art Museum mean to me?” You can use any medium, but it must be bold and high in contrast so that it will be easy to see when printed. The design may be in color, but it should be able to be printed in black and white without compromising the integrity of the artwork. Designs measuring approximately 8 x 8 inches are preferred. Submit your high resolution (300 DPI) work by email to tshirtcontest@mam.org on or before February 15, 2011. Semi-finalists, selected by the Milwaukee Art Museum and the A.V. Club Milwaukee, will be posted on the A.V. Club Milwaukee’s Facebook page on February 16, 2011 (http://www.facebook.com/avclub.milwaukee).

The community will then vote on the finalists and the winner by “liking” the designs. The finalists and the winner, respectively, will be announced at the March 11 and April 15 MAM After Dark events at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The winning designer will be required to submit a hi-res .eps or .ai file within 24 hours of notification.

* You do not need to live in Milwaukee or even Wisconsin to participate, but you must be 18 or older. No more than TWO ideas may be submitted per person. Submissions must be received by February 15, 2011, in order to qualify. The winning artwork and its derivatives will become the legal property of the Milwaukee Art Museum. Employees of the Milwaukee Art Museum and/or the A.V. Club Milwaukee/The Onion are not eligible.

The artist whose logo is selected will receive:

• A Family membership to the Milwaukee Art Museum
• His or her design reproduced on a t-shirt to be sold in the Museum Store
• The intangible benefits of having a beautiful piece of published artwork while supporting an organization that encourages art and education in our community

Milwaukee Art Museum Premieres Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century

Milwaukee, Wis. – On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, studio and school in Spring Green, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Art Museum will present a major exhibition offering a fresh perspective on celebrated architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright’s seven-decade career. The exhibition will run from February 12 through May 15, 2011.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century surveys more than 150 works, including drawings —33 of which have never been exhibited publicly— scale models, furniture, and photography as well as video footage of Wright and several key projects.  Reflecting on Wright’s impact during his lifetime and his significance today, the retrospective will highlight the many triumphs of Wright’s career and focus on his grand opus of suburban planning, Living City (1958) which, though never realized, was the culmination of all his work. This blueprint for Wright’s urban utopia vision incorporated the natural environment into everyday life.

“Wright defined organic architecture as being appropriate to ‘place, people and time’ and designed around those elements. He wanted to connect with new technology and use it to advance his architecture,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Wright’s design for suburban communities integrated nature, affordable homes, enlightened workspaces, parking, and other aspects of daily living, all in a repeatable model.”

Examining major projects including Unity Temple (Oak Park, Illinois, 1905), Fallingwater (Mill Run, Pennsylvania, 1936), Johnson Wax (Racine, Wisconsin, 1936, known today as the SC Johnson Administration Building), Taliesin (1911–59), and Taliesin West (Scottsdale, Arizona, 1937–59), the exhibition will analyze Wright’s objectives and illuminate the pioneering vision of the man known as America’s greatest architect.

“Wright was a prophetic thinker, decades ahead of his peers. In many ways, key aspects of his career relate to issues and practices of architecture today, including sustainability and efficiency,” said Roberts. “In examining Wright’s concern with material and space efficiency, economical use of manufactured materials, attention to local environment, and use of natural light, we see his profound contribution as a visionary for architectural practice in the twenty-first century.”

Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale. The exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates the centennial of Taliesin in 2011, which is also the 10th anniversary of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion. The exhibition will travel to Phoenix Art Museum in 2012.

ABOUT FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) spent more than 70 years creating designs that revolutionized the art and architecture of the 20th century. In all, he designed 1,141 works—including houses, offices, churches, schools, libraries, bridges and museums. Of that total, 532 resulted in completed works, 409 of which still stand. Wright also designed furniture, fabrics, art glass, lamps, dinnerware, silver, linens and graphic arts. In addition, he was a prolific writer, an educator and a philosopher. He authored 20 books and countless articles, lectured throughout the United States and in Europe, and developed a remarkable plan for decentralizing urban America that continues to be debated by scholars and writers to this day.

RELATED PROGRAMS
The Museum will present a symposium and lectures on architecture, special events with visiting architects, and a self-guided tour of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Wisconsin, highlighting his most significant projects in Milwaukee and Racine.

EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century is sponsored by SC Johnson Fund and PNC, with the Figge Foundation and Thomas K. Figge. Additional generous support is provided by Andy Nunemaker, the Dorothy W. Inbusch Foundation, the Ruth St. John and John Dunham West Foundation, and the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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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Press Contacts:
For additional information and images please contact:
Kristin Settle, Public Relations Manager
414-224-3246
kristin.settle@mam.org

Vicki Scharfberg, Senior Director of Marketing & Communications
414-224-3243
vicki.scharfberg@mam.org

Milwaukee Art Museum Frames a Decade with Newest Exhibition

Celebrates print and drawing acquisitions over the past ten years

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Milwaukee Art Museum’s newest exhibition, Framing a Decade: Acquisitions of Prints and Drawings, 2001–2011, highlights a selection of the nearly three thousand works new to the Museum’s prints and drawings collection since 2001, when the Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion opened to the public. The exhibition is on view in the Koss Gallery, and spans over four centuries of pictorial achievement in Europe and North America.

Celebrating what has been accomplished in ten years, Framing a Decade showcases approximately sixty drawings, etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts that have come into the Museum’s collection either to enrich areas of strength or to broaden the scope of its Collection. Old Masters through to artists working today are represented, including Callot, Rembrandt, Gauguin, Klimt, Nolde, Kirchner, Picasso, Schiele, Francis, LeWitt, Bruce, Frankenthaler, Nauman, and more.

“This exhibition highlights the richness and breadth of some of the finest and rarest prints and drawings the Museum has acquired in the past decade,” said Mary Weaver Chapin, associate curator of prints and drawings. “Framing a Decade is an invigorating, visual experience of some of the world’s most famous artists.”

Framing a Decade also honors the donors and Members who helped make these acquisitions possible. In the past ten years, the Museum has acquired major gifts from the Maurice and Esther Leah Ritz and the Warrington Colescott collections, and has received a recent donation of over 500 prints from the Sam Francis Foundation.

“Many thanks go out to countless individuals and organizations for the works on view in this magnificent exhibition of prints and drawings,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “The entire Museum extends its gratitude to the generous gifts and bequests over the years that make exhibitions like this possible. With the approaching ten-year anniversary of the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion, this decade-long snapshot of prints and drawings could not be a better complement to our celebration.”

Framing a Decade: Acquisitions of Prints and Drawings, 2001–2011 features gifts from countless individuals and from the Maurice and Esther Leah Ritz Collection; the Hockerman Charitable Trust; the Sam Francis Foundation, California; and the Landfall Press Archive, gift of Jack Lemon.

ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING FOR FRAMING A DECADE: ACQUISITIONS OF PRINTS AND DRAWINGS, 2001-2011

Gallery Talks with the Curator
Tues, January 25, 1:30 p.m.
Tues, February 22, 1:30 p.m.

MAM After Dark | MAD Hot
Fri, January 21, 5 p.m.–midnight
Experience the visually-engaging documentary “All About Prints” at 6:15 p.m. in Lubar Auditorium, then explore Framing a Decade.
Details and advance admission at www.mam.org/afterdark.
 

ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 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.