Tel. (414) 220-4321
Cel. (773) 629-2853
Email: claudia.arzeno@mam.org

 GREEN FAIR SHOWCASES MILWAUKEE’S GREEN COMMUNITY
Chipstone Foundation promotes green living at the Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee, WI November 11, 2009 – On January 30, the Chipstone Foundation is hosting its first ever Green Fair at the Milwaukee Art Museum, in conjunction with the exhibition, Green Furniture: Sustainable Design in the 21^st Century. The event will take place from 10:00AM to 5:00PM; everyone seeking ideas on how to adopt sustainable practices and try green products is invited to attend. Admission to the Green Fair is free with museum admission.

The green lifestyle is quickly becoming mainstream, allowing individuals and businesses to benefit every day by making environmentally friendly choices. The Green Fair was created to demonstrate how simple the transition to earth-friendly can be. “A few years ago, the notion of buying ‘Green’ was barely on anybody’s radar screen; today Green products are everywhere,” said Jonathan Prown, director of the Chipstone Foundation. “With this rise in public awareness has come a growing array of products that spuriously claim to be Green but that still rely on problematic modes of production or shipping. The Green Fair will allow Museum visitors to meet the best and brightest makers, growers, thinkers, and retailers in the greater Milwaukee area, and to gain a better understanding of this new and enlightened way of reforming our material world.”

The event kicks off with a green marketplace. Visitors will be able to browse and purchase environmentally friendly goods from local vendors such as Rishi Tea, Outpost Natural Foods, Olive Organic Living, and Future Green. The marketplace will also include local green non-profits, such as Growing Power and the Milwaukee Green Building Alliance, presenting information on ways to live a greener life.

Visitors exploring the green marketplace need only look outside to see Hongtao Zhou’s snow furniture demonstration. The artist will be creating furniture out of ice and snow from the Museum grounds. In addition, a variety of artists included in the Green Furniture exhibition will be demonstrating different green building techniques throughout the day. Visitors are encouraged to participate and learn how to build eco-friendly, fun furniture such as newspaper stools.

Being environmentally conscious affects all aspects of a person’s life. With this in mind, Green community leaders will come together in the Museum’s Lubar Auditorium from 1:00 to 3:00, to discuss the Green movement in relation to their different practices. Ken Dunn, founder of Chicago City Farm, will discuss thinking green in the Midwest; James Godsil of Sweetwater Organics will discuss eating green; Nik Kovac, Milwaukee Alderman, will discuss voting green; while the Cedarburg architects Kubala Washatko will discuss building green.

The Green Fair is organized by the Chipstone Foundation in conjunction with the Green Furniture exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Green Furniture is on view from November 12, 2009, to March 14, 2010.

GREEN FURNITURE GALLERY TALKS
Tuesday, January 26, 1:30 p.m.
With Hongtao Zhou, guest curator

Tuesday, February 23, 1:30 p.m.
With Ethan Lasser, curator, Chipstone Foundation

MAM After Dark (presented by Northwestern Mutual Foundation)
Friday, January 15, 5 p.m.-Midnight
Carpool, snowshoe, or take the bus to the Museum for an eco-friendly evening your conscience can be at ease with. This popular after-hours art happening regularly features a DIY Studio, Photo Booth, music by Radio Milwaukee DJs, exclusive access to the galleries, appetizers, cash bar, and more. 

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.

Press Contact:
Adam Horwitz
adam.horwitz@mam.org
414-224-3294

Milwaukee Art Museum hosts exhibition of artworks created by combat veterans. October 22–November 15, 2009

Milwaukee, WI – October 22, 2009 – In conjunction with the Wisconsin Warrior Summit being held at the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center on October 22, the Milwaukee Art Museum is proud to host War, Art, & the Veteran, a display of artworks created by combat veterans, October 22–November 15, 2009. The exhibition was organized by the National Veterans Art Museum, Chicago, and Dryhootch, a veteran support network, and reflects the Milwaukee Art Museum’s shared commitment to the original, 1957 dedication of the War Memorial Center, “To Honor the Dead by Serving the Living.”

 War, Art, & the Veteran will feature the paintings, sculptures, and photographs of combat veterans who have served our country in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, among others. Over 65 works will be on view in the Museum’s Schroeder Galleria. The Wisconsin Warriors Summit, whose mission is “dedicated to coordinating a comprehensive community response to the mental health needs of veterans and their families,” is being held in the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center on Thursday, October 22, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The summit is open to the public and registration fee is $35.00 per person which covers the event, parking, and lunch. Questions about the summit should be directed to Mental Health America of Wisconsin, at 414-276-3122.

http://www.dryhootch.org/page/war-art-veteran
http://www.nvvam.org/

Press Contact: mailto:
Maggie Baum, 608-438-2814
mbaum@100monkeyspr.com

Milwaukee Art Museum to Light Iconic Calatrava-Designed Wings Pink

Milwaukee’s cultural icon shows support for breast cancer awareness in conjunction with premiere of Andy Warhol: The Last Decade

Milwaukee, Wis. – September 23, 2009 – Beginning this evening, the Milwaukee Art Museum, for the first time ever, will glow pink against the stunning backdrop of the September evening sky. The 10-day lighting project celebrates the opening of the Museum’s major fall exhibition, Andy Warhol: The Last Decade with a nod to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure at the Milwaukee lakefront on Sunday, September 27. With a 217-foot wingspan that opens and closes twice daily, the illuminated wings of the Quadracci Pavilion will offer an extraordinary spectacle along the city’s skyline.

“It’s wonderful timing that we’re unveiling the work of an iconic Pop artist as the 2009 Komen Race for the Cure winds around the Milwaukee Art Museum,” said Dan Keegan, the Museum’s director. “For the first time ever, we’ll fully light the Museum in color – bright pink – to show our support for the race and breast cancer awareness. The lighting project will offer a beautiful visual representation of art as a catalyst for healing and hope, and underscores the Museum’s importance as a community gathering place.”

In a continuing effort to collaborate with and support an array of community organizations, the Museum exterior will be lit in pink each evening from approximately 7:00 p.m. until 10:30 p.m., starting today through the beginning of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month on Friday, October 2. The end time will be extended until midnight on Friday, September 25; Saturday, September 26; and Friday,

October 2. For added visual excitement, the Museum’s outdoor fountains will also take on a bright pink hue starting today.

“We hope the community, and families, will take the opportunity to drive or walk by the Milwaukee Art Museum to see this spectacular sight,” added Keegan.

In an additional show of support, the Milwaukee Art Museum will offer free admission on race day to all cancer survivors participating in the Komen Race for the Care. Survivors will be presented with a certificate for admission in the Survivor’s Tent after the race, or can gain admission on race day by wearing their signature pink t-shirt. All other participants will receive a special offer for $2 off admission. The Komen Race for the Cure, the largest series of 5K runs/fitness walks in the world, raises significant funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer, celebrates breast cancer survivorship, and honors those who have lost their battle with the disease.

The lighting is made possible with the support of the Pellmann Center for Medical Imaging.

ABOUT ANDY WARHOL: THE LAST DECADE

Organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, Andy Warhol: The Last Decade, the first U.S. museum exhibition to explore the work Warhol produced during his late years, premieres in Milwaukee September 26, 2009 – January 3, 2010 before heading on a national tour. Created amidst the bustle of Warhol’s Pop celebrity, the works on view illustrate as never before the artist’s vitality, energy, and renewed spirit of experimentation during the final years of his life.

Two concurrent special presentations in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Collection Galleries round out the Warhol experience. In Andy Warhol: Pop Star, prints from the Marilyn and Mao portfolios make a rare appearance, alongside works on loan to the Museum from local collectors; and Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind, (through November 29, 2009) features more than 30 works by contemporaries of Warhol, including Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, and Julian Schnabel.

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 “Best Design of 2001.” For more information, visit www.mam.org.

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Press Contact:
Maggie Baum, 608-438-2814
mbaum@100monkeyspr.com

Milwaukee Art Museum organizes first U.S. museum exhibition of Warhol’s late works

-Andy Warhol: The Last Decade opens September 26; challenges preconceptions of the Pop icon-

Milwaukee, WI, August 5, 2009—This fall, the Milwaukee Art Museum will present the first U.S. museum exhibition to explore the work Andy Warhol produced during his late years. Organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, Andy Warhol: The Last Decade premieres in Milwaukee September 26, 2009 – January 3, 2010 before heading on national tour. Created amidst the bustle of Warhol’s Pop celebrity, the works on view illustrate as never before the artist’s vitality, energy, and renewed spirit of experimentation during the final years of his life.

“Warhol is as misunderstood as he is famous,” said John McKinnon, Milwaukee Art Museum assistant curator of modern and contemporary art. “This first-of-its-kind exhibition evaluates the artist’s late work to demonstrate his skills as a master painter and fervent collaborator.”

Warhol created more new series of paintings in the last decade of his life, in larger numbers and on a vastly larger scale, than during any other phase of his 40-year career. But far from a period of “Factory” production, it was a time of extraordinary artistic development for Warhol, during which a dramatic transformation of his style took place alongside the introduction of new techniques. The artist confidently utilized and combined hand painting, mechanical reproduction, representation, and abstraction. Collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Keith Haring were central to his pursuit of new ideas, and stimulated the artist to return to painting by hand.

The exhibition includes nearly 50 works lent by private collectors and institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art; and Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Along with an introduction to Warhol’s oeuvre, it is divided into thematic sections based on significant Warhol series: abstract works, collaborations (featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente), black-and-white ads, works surrounding death and religion, self-portraits, camouflage patterns, oxidation paintings, and a concluding section of the artist’s Last Supper series— the largest series that he produced in his entire career. Several large-scale works 25 to 35 feet in width punctuate the exhibition. In 1984, Warhol purchased a new studio building where he had the luxury of an expansive space in which to work. The paintings created there mushroomed in size to monumental proportions.

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and guest curated by Joseph D. Ketner II, Lois and Henry Foster Chair in Contemporary Art, Emerson College, Boston. The exhibition is coordinated at the Milwaukee Art Museum by John McKinnon, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art.

ALSO ON VIEW
During Andy Warhol: The Last Decade, an entire Warhol experience will permeate throughout the Museum, and includes two special presentations in the Collection Galleries. In Gallery 21 with Andy Warhol: Pop Star, prints from the Marilyn and Mao portfolios in the Museum’s Collection will make a rare appearance, alongside works on loan to the Museum from local collectors. The Museum first began acquiring works by the iconic Pop star as early as 1967. In the Koss Gallery, Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind, on view through November 29, 2009, features more than 30 works by contemporaries of Warhol, including Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, and Julian Schnabel, and continues a tradition the Museum established in 1987 when it presented, for the first time, Warhol in the context of his peers in Warhol/Beuys/Polke.

EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is sponsored by Sue and Bud Selig, Debbie and Mark Attanasio, Donald and Donna Baumgartner, Christine Symchych, Tony and Sue Krausen, the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Friends of Art, and an anonymous foundation. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities. A film program in conjunction with this exhibition is sponsored by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Johnson and Pabst LGBT Humanity Fund.

EXHIBITION ITINERARY
Milwaukee Art Museum (September 26, 2009–January 3, 2010)
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (February 14–May 16, 2010)
Brooklyn Museum (June 18–September 12, 2010)
Baltimore Museum of Art (October 17, 2010–January 9, 2011)

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Published by the Milwaukee Art Museum and DelMonico Books, an imprint of Prestel Publishing, Andy Warhol: The Last Decade by Joseph D. Ketner II includes two out-of-print essays by Keith Haring and Julian Schnabel, essays by Keith Hartley and Gregory Volk, and a contribution by Bruno Bischofberger. The book is the first to focus on the artist’s prolific final years, featuring more than 155 full-color illustrations that delve into the range of works Warhol was creating, including abstract paintings, collaborations, and his final self-portraits. 224 pages. Hardcover ($60/$54 Member) and softcover editions ($40/$36 Member) are available in the Museum Store, 414-224-3210 or www.mam.org/store.

PRESS PREVIEW
Wednesday, September 23, noon–2 p.m.
Join exhibition curators for an exclusive tour of the exhibition, followed by refreshments and Q&A.

DIGITAL MEDIA LIBRARY
To download high-resolution press images of works featured in the exhibition, visit the Museum’s online resources at www.mam.org/info/pressroom. A link to the Digital Media Library is in the right column of the page.

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 “Best Design of 2001.”

IMAGES AND INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
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MILWAUKEE (July 27, 2009) – inPLAY EVENTS announces the return of the 2009 Milwaukee Wine Festival presented by Harris Bank to be held Aug. 21–22 on the grounds of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The two-day, outdoor event will provide festival-goers with an opportunity to sample more than 200 fine wines from around the globe in a relaxed setting along the shore of Lake Michigan, with a beautiful view of the Milwaukee Art Museum and its Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion.

“Our sponsorship of the festival continues to build on our overall efforts to support the greater Milwaukee community,” said Tom Bolger, president of Harris Bank Wisconsin. “Harris Bank has a long history of supporting the growth and success of the communities we serve, and we are dedicated to be part of helping to showcase this vibrant city.”

“This relaxed wine tasting event is designed not only for the novice wine consumer just learning about the world of wine but also for the experienced wine drinker looking for new and exciting brands,” said event organizer Scott Janess of inPLAY EVENTS. “

Guests can indulge their palates with impeccable wine varieties, and enjoy some of the area’s most exquisite food from local restaurants such as the Milwaukee Art Museum’s own Café Calatrava, The Capital Grille, as well as a number of Marcus Restaurants including the Mason Street Grill, Milwaukee Chop House, and Kil@wat. There will also be an array of entertainment ranging from live music to cooking and wine seminars and demonstrations.

The Blue Moon Beer Garden, a festival within the festival, will appeal to the beer lovers with a selection of their quality beers.

A portion of the proceeds from the 2009 Milwaukee Wine Festival will be donated to the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Friends of Art, the primary volunteer support organization of the Museum. Friends of Art works to raise funds for art acquisitions and exhibition sponsorship and develops activities to foster appreciation for visual art and to inspire volunteer leadership.

FESTIVAL DETAILS

The festival will take place Friday, Aug. 21 from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday, Aug. 22 from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Adult wine tasting tickets will be $30 at the door ($25 for Milwaukee Art Museum Members) and $20 in advance when purchased by Aug. 20. Adult tickets include festival admission, a souvenir wine glass, 10 tasting tickets (a booklet for 10 additional tickets is $5), festival program, and access to all demonstrations, seminars and musical entertainment. Patrons under 21 receive free festival admission when accompanied by an adult.

Tickets can be purchased by calling (888) 210-0074, online at www.milwaukeewinefestival.com or at the festival entrance. Advanced tickets may also be purchased at the Milwaukee Art Museum Store. The deadline for advance ticket sales via phone or online is Thursday, Aug. 20. All phone purchases must be made by 5 p.m. and online by 8 p.m that day. Tickets purchased after Aug.11 will be held at Will Call located at the festival entrance. All sales are final. The festival will take place rain or shine.

Groups of 15 or more can purchase tickets in advance for $17.50. The group ticket package includes all of the same benefits as the adult ticket yet saves festival-goers $2.50 off the advance price and $12.50 off the door price.

Designated driver tickets are also available. For $10 (in advance or at the door), individuals will receive two non-alcoholic drinks, festival program, food and wine seminars, cooking demonstrations, musical entertainment and a souvenir wine glass upon departure.

This year’s festival features the following wine exhibitors: Black Box Wines, Trinchero Family Estates, Rebel Wine/Three Thieves, Stones Throw Winery, Michael David Winery, Gallo Family Vineyards, Hess Collection, PKNT, Cedar Creek Winery/Wollersheim Winery, Winebow, Napa Ridge Winery, Antares Wine Company, Door Peninsula Winery, Prestige Wine Group, Redwood Creek Winery and Vine One. Additional wine exhibitors will be announced at a later date.

Participating restaurants include The Capital Grille, Mason Street Grill, Milwaukee ChopHouse, Kil@wat, Flatlander’s Restaurant & Brewery, Eddie Martini’s and the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Café Calatrava. A complete listing of restaurants will be announced closer to the event.

The Milwaukee Wine Festival is presented by Harris Bank. Sponsors include Fiji Artesian Water, Audi, Blue Moon Beer, Sendik’s Food Market Balistreri, Black Box Wines, AirTran, Emerald Nuts, Marcus Group, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 99.1 WMYX, 103.7 KISS FM and Milwaukee Magazine.

For more information about the 2009 Milwaukee Wine Festival, please visit www.milwaukeewinefestival.com.

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“This is a major highlight in the Museum’s more than 120-year history,” said Dan Keegan, director.  “It is a coup for our institution and an incredible chance for the public, students, and scholars to experience first-hand an extraordinary and priceless painting that captures the ideals of the High Renaissance. Our involvement in the project illustrates the incredible opportunities we have thanks to our proven success with international collaborations.”

A contemporary of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael was famed as a painter of portraits and altarpieces. He was commissioned to paint several rooms of the Vatican’s Papal apartments. Raphael’s work as a painter and architect was a major influence of the Renaissance and continues today.

In the painting, Raphael represents his brilliance at depicting sfumato, an Italian term for a painting technique—often associated with Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa—whereby lightly applied layers of color are used to capture light, and articulate volume and form. Raphael developed in the work his own ideal of female beauty and deportment, responding to Mona Lisa. The sitter’s veil indicates that she is married, while the sleeve conveys both opulence and, in abstract terms, the sitter’s hidden but complex psychology. Art historians have variously identified this beautiful woman, Margherita Luti, both as a patron’s bride and as the artist’s mistress. She appears as a model in many of Raphael’s most important works.

Raphael’s La Donna Velata is organized by the Portland Art Museum and the Foundation for Italian Art & Culture, New York. The exhibition is coordinated at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Director of Exhibitions Laurie Winters.

About Raphael
Raphael (1483–1520), also known as Raffaello Sanzio, was born in Urbino, Italy. His father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter and poet. Raphael trained in his father’s workshop and later in the workshop of the artist Pietro Perugino. In 1504 he began spending time and perhaps even resided in Florence, where he was influenced by the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Eventually, he moved to Rome where, under the patronage of Pope Julius II, he entered his most productive phase as an artist. He managed a large workshop of pupils and assistants, many of whom became well-known artists in their own right. Raphael’s art reached wide-spread influence through collaboration with the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, who produced prints of Raphael’s paintings.

Raphael’s personal life was complex. He never married but was reputed to have had many relationships. In 1514 he became engaged to Maria Bibbiena, the niece of an influential Cardinal and Raphael’s friend. The marriage never took place, and she died in 1520. Raphael lived a grand lifestyle in Rome and attained some status at court. It is believed that he died on his 37th birthday in 1520. He left a significant portion of his estate to Margherita Luti—La Donna Velata—and he was buried in the Pantheon.

About the Exhibition
La Donna Velata will be displayed in the Museum’s Koss gallery with didactic materials that provide insight into Renaissance art, portraiture, and Raphael’s career. A publication will also accompany the exhibition.

International Collaborations at the Milwaukee Art Museum
In 2002, Leonardo da Vinci and the Splendor of Poland was named one of the top five exhibitions of the year by Apollo magazine and brought over 140,000 visitors to the Museum in three months. Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity (September 16, 2006–January 1, 2007) traveled to the Albertina in Vienna, the Deutsches Historisches Museum-Berlin, and the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Jan Lievens: Out of Rembrandt’s Shadow, the Museum’s most recent international collaboration, is on view at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam through August 9, 2009.

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.”

FEATURE EXHIBITIONS IN QUADRACCI PAVILION—
ON VIEW IN BAKER/ROWLAND EXHIBITION GALLERIES

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
September 26, 2009–January 3, 2010

Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959
January 30–April 25, 2010

Quilts in a Material World: Selections from the Winterthur Collection
May 22–September 6, 2010

ON VIEW IN THE KOSS GALLERY

Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind
August 6–October 25, 2009

Fifty Works for Fifty States: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection
December 17, 2009–February 28, 2010

Raphael’s La Donna Velata
March 26–June 6, 2010

ON VIEW IN THE DECORATIVE ARTS GALLERY

American Furniture / Googled
July 9–October 11, 2009

Green Furniture Design
November 12, 2009–March 14, 2010

Theaster Gates: Resurrecting Dave the Potter
April 15–August 1, 2010

ON VIEW IN THE CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES

Out of Line: The Satirical Prints of Warrington Colescott
June 17–September 26, 2010

FEATURE EXHIBITIONS IN QUADRACCI PAVILION -
ON VIEW IN THE BAKER/ROWLAND EXHIBITION GALLERIES

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
September 26, 2009–January 3, 2010

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first U.S. museum survey exhibition to explore the work that this seminal American artist produced during the final eight years of his life. Warhol entered a period of renewed vigor and enthusiasm in the 1980s that resulted in what was arguably the most productive period of his career.

Premiering at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the exhibition includes approximately 55 works lent by private collections and institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, and Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Along with an introduction to Warhol, it is divided into thematic sections based on significant Warhol series: abstract works; collaborations (featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat); black-and-white ads; works surrounding death and religion; self-portraits; camouflage patterns; and a concluding section of the artist’s Last Supper series.

Several large-scale works will punctuate the exhibition. In 1984, Warhol purchased a new studio building where—after working in a confined studio within the well-known Factory space for the majority of his career—he had the luxury of a large ballroom in which to create his works. The paintings mushroomed in scale to monumental proportions. In each of his late series, a number of works stretch from 25 to 35 feet in width.

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is guest curated by Joseph D. Ketner II, Lois and Henry Foster Chair in Contemporary Art at Emerson College, Boston, and organized at the Milwaukee Art Museum by John McKinnon, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art. The exhibition will travel nationally after its premiere in Milwaukee.

Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959
January 30–April 25, 2010

Abstract Expressionism, film noir, Beat poetry, and the New Journalism are all widely recognized aftershocks of World War II, representing a broad aesthetic revolution that championed spontaneity and subjective interpretation as the guiding principles of creative practice. Postwar photographers in many ways set the rhythm and tenor of this new approach, not least because the hand-held camera was naturally suited to chance discoveries and impulsive gestures. Significantly, it was the increased prominence of photography in American culture during and just prior to World War II that made it possible for the battlefield to be seen by—and made very real for—those on the home front.

Street Seen provides an in-depth look at six photographers active during the 1940s and 1950s whose work is grounded in a photographic sensibility derived from the visceral imagery of World War II. Lisette Model, Louis Faurer, Ted Croner, Saul Leiter, William Klein, and Robert Frank all share a talent for communicating the emotional resonance of everyday life in postwar America. Their graphically charged and emotionally engaging photographs evoke the excitement and unease that characterized the era, as popular culture, the arts, and everyday life underwent substantial, dramatic changes.

Many of these photographers also experimented with motion picture film. A select group of these short, non-narrative films will be on view in the galleries to create a dialogue with the approximately 100 photographs. In addition, to demonstrate the scope of the “psychological gesture” in American art during this period, paintings and drawings by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline will punctuate the installation. The proximity of the paintings and photographs will clarify the significance and breadth of the subjective, performative approach to art-making in the mid-twentieth century.

Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959 is curated by Curator of Photographs Lisa Hostetler.

Quilts in a Material World:  Selections from the Winterthur Collection
May 22–September 6, 2010

One of the world’s finest collections of early American quilts concludes its national tour at the Milwaukee Art Museum May 22-September 6, 2010. Featuring rare surviving textiles of the late 1700s and early 1800s from the Winterthur Museum, Delaware, Quilts in a Material World outlines America’s earliest cultural landscape with stunning detail. Never-before-seen objects include the only known example of an American quilted coat of arms (1815), one of only four known American framed medallion quilts (1805), and a kaleidoscopic sunburst quilt featuring over 6,700 pieces of printed cotton (1827).

Through skillful needlework and careful color coordination, each of the 40 quilts on view-drawn from a staggering collection of more than 20,000 textiles-transforms an array of fabrics, both common and exotic, into an extraordinary work of art illustrating early America (1760-1850). Quilts expressing religious faith, celebrating marriages, and supporting political candidates provide a rare opportunity to interpret the economics and politics of the time. The exhibition draws on the period correspondence of Mary Remington, a master quilter from Warwick, Rhode Island, to look closely at the makers’ lives and the developments that affected their designs and material selection.

Quilts in a Material World: Selections from the Winterthur Collection is curated by Linda Eaton of the Winterthur Museum and organized at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Mel Buchanan, Liz Flaig, and Catharine Sawinski.

ON VIEW IN THE KOSS GALLERY

Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind
August 6–October 25, 2009

The figure, never abandoned for long, returned as a dominant subject of artistic expression in the 1980s, following on the heels of Minimalism and Conceptualism. There was renewed interest in the art world for the sensuality and emotionality of the painted surface, and in image making. American, German, and Italian artists in particular employed familiar images as they once again turned to myth, allegory, and narrative in their work.

Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind features approximately 40 works drawn almost exclusively from the Museum’s outstanding collection of contemporary prints. Among the artists represented are Georg Baselitz, Richard Bosman, Francesco Clemente, Eric Fischl, Jörg Immendorff, Susan Rothenberg, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel. Though many are primarily known as painters, these artists embraced printmaking for its physicality, directness, and immediacy. Etching and woodcut resurged at this time because artists deemed them the most appropriate print techniques to reflect the many dramas they were depicting. Some artists struggled with their nation’s historical and cultural legacy, others turned inward, exploring private moments such as dreams and unconscious states. Figurative Prints puts the work of so-called Neo-Expressionists, graffiti artists, and academically trained artists side by side.

Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind is curated by Brooke Mulvaney, collections manager of works on paper.

Fifty Works for Fifty States: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection
December 17, 2009–February 28, 2010

Dorothy and Herbert Vogel have made art-collecting a lifelong journey, amassing a world-class art collection of over 4,000 works on a shoe-string budget. Herbert, 85, spent most of his working life as an employee of the U.S. Postal Service, while Dorothy, 73, was a reference librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library.

In keeping with their history of civil service, the Vogels are gifting 2,500 works from their collection of contemporary art throughout the nation, with 50 works going to a selected public art institution in each of the 50 different states.

The institution selected in Wisconsin is the Milwaukee Art Museum. Honored to be the recipient of such a gift, the Museum presents Fifty Works for Fifty States: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection December 17, 2009-February 28, 2010. Artists represented in the exhibition, which focuses on minimalist and conceptual art-the best known and most well developed aspect of the couple’s collecting focus-include Robert Barry, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, and Richard Tuttle.

Fifty Works for Fifty States: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection is curated by John McKinnon, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art.

Raphael’s La Donna Velata
March 26–June 6, 2010

The Milwaukee Art Museum presents Raphael’s La Donna Velata, one of the most celebrated artworks of the Italian Renaissance, in a one-work masterpiece exhibition. On loan from the Pitti Palace in Florence, La Donna Velata (Veiled Lady) is considered an invaluable treasure among the paintings in the collection. The portrait, which Raphael painted in about 1516, had a profound influence on artists both of his day and since; not only is it beautifully painted, but a myth of intrigue envelops the work—it is rumored that the sitter was the artist’s mistress. At one point, the portrait was considered the most famous painting in the world.

Responding to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Raphael developed in this portrait his own ideal of female beauty and deportment. The sitter’s veil indicates that she is married, while the sleeve conveys both opulence and, in abstract terms, the sitter’s hidden but complex psychology. Art historians have variously identified this beautiful woman as a patron’s bride and as the artist’s mistress, who appears as a model in many of Raphael’s most important works.

Raphael’s La Donna Velata is organized by the Portland Museum of Art and the Foundation for Italian Art & Culture, New York. The exhibition is coordinated at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Director of Exhibitions Laurie Winters.

ON VIEW IN THE DECORATIVE ARTS GALLERY

American Furniture / Googled
July 9–October 11, 2009

In this experimental installation on view in the Decorative Arts Gallery, traditional object labels are replaced by digital screens that capture what an array of institutions and individuals have to say about eleven examples of Victorian-era furniture.

The unconventional labels share resource materials from the Internet, including in-depth information on similar furniture and relevant design histories from other museums, libraries, and blogs; market values at an auction house; and entertaining snapshots made available on a photo-sharing website.

American Furniture / Googled explores a range of nineteenth-century furniture styles from neoclassicism, through opulent revival styles, to early Modernism. On view will be chairs by George Hunzinger, L. & J. G. Stickley, Samuel Gragg, and the Herter Brothers, along with a wildly ornamented Kimbel & Cabus Desk, a restrained Shaker Sewing Desk, a gilt and stenciled neoclassical-style Pier Table, and George Niedecken’s Dresser for the Demmer House.

American Furniture / Googled is is organized by Mel Buchanan, Mae E. Demmer assistant curator of 20th-century design.

Green Furniture Design
November 12, 2009–March 14, 2010

Green Furniture Design focuses on the concept of sustainable design, which centers not only around a responsible use of materials and methods of manufacture but also on issues of object life span, energy usage, and recycling/disposal. The exhibition explores how 21st-century furniture makers seek to modify our aesthetic expectations—especially when it comes to forms that are multifunctional, recyclable, or made of alternative materials. Work by contemporary artists is featured alongside historical objects, exploring roots of the green idea in furniture design.

The exhibition curators also strive to achieve a level of “green curating” that cuts down on this exhibition’s carbon footprint. The team is scaling back the use of paper in design, planning, and writing practices related to the show; incorporating local objects and materials that do not require crating and shipping from far away places; and using bicycle transportation for objects from as far away as Madison and Green Bay. In the gallery, the design team will use recycled materials for labels and platforms. Electronically activated lighting will control energy consumption, as well.

This exhibition is curated by Ethan Lasser and guest curator Hongtao Zhou. Organized at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Ethan Lasser.

ON VIEW IN THE CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES

Out of Line: The Satirical Prints of Warrington Colescott
June 17–September 26, 2010

Warrington Colescott is the premier satirical printmaker working in the United States, employing his sharp wit and vivid imagination to interpret contemporary and historical events in the tradition of William Hogarth, Francisco de Goya, Honoré Daumier, and George Grosz. He is internationally respected for his exceptional command of complex techniques and for his unique practice of cutting intaglio plates to silhouette compositional elements.

The Milwaukee Art Museum has the largest collection of work by Colescott. Out of Line: The Satirical Prints of Warrington Colescott will highlight the Museum’s rich holdings and celebrate sixty years of Colescott’s print production. The Museum is also preparing the catalogue raisonné of his printed oeuvre— The Prints of Warrington Colescott: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1948–2008—to be copublished by the University of Wisconsin Press. The 352-page catalogue documents and depicts all 354 of Colescott’s editioned prints, providing title, date, media, dimensions, and selected exhibition history and collections for each print, along with comments and anecdotes by Colescott and author Mary Weaver Chapin.

Out of Line: The Satirical Prints of Warrington Colescott is curated by Mary Weaver Chapin, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings.

MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM FACTS

The Milwaukee Art Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion, completed in October 2001. The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day.

HOURS
Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thursdays until 8 p.m. (Supported by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation)
Open until midnight for MAM After Dark events (Presented by the Northwestern Mutual Foundation)
Closed Mondays except Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day
Closed Thanksgiving Day and December 25

ADMISSION
$12 Adults
$10 Students / Seniors / Active Military
Members and Children 12 & under FREE
Free admission every Wednesday for Milwaukee County residents

GROUP TOURS
For group tour reservations and discounts, call 414-224-3842.

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This year’s winners are:

Marvin Blackmore, Ceramics, Dolores CO
Chia Haruta, Printmaking, Hanover MI
Susan Hill, Fiber – Non-Wearable, Kansas City MO
Carol Menninga, Mixed Media 2D, Roscoe IL
Sue Mersman, Wood, Wetmore KS
Dona Look and Ken Loeber, Jewelry, Algoma WI
Patricia Palson, Fiber-Wearable, Contoocook NH
Bruce Peeso, Painting, Monson MA
James Petran, Painting, Iowa City IA
R. Michael Wommack, Drawing/Pastel, Langhorne PA
            
Each winning artist will each receive a cash prize of $1,000, a commemorative art piece designed by the LFOA Design Award-winning artist, and an invitation to return to the festival for the next three years.

This year, the commemorative art piece given to the winning artists is designed by Scott Roach, a sculpture artist from Salt Lake City. Roach works primarily with wall-hanging sculpture, incorporating carved and textured wood with patinated metal.  

Honorable Mentions:
 
Matthew Adelman, Painting, Oberlin OH
Jack Brumbaugh, Drawing/Pastel, Tracys Landing MD
Chris Coffey, Photography, Akron OH
Michael Cole, Photography, Hannibal MO
Leon Fontier, Metal, Penn Yan NY
Larry Fox, Sculpture, Omena MI
Matthew Hatala, Wood, Danielsville GA
Clare Malloy, Painting, Chicago IL
Michael Santini, Painting, Mequon WI
Diana Stetson, Printmaking, Albuquerque NM
Taman VanScoy, Painting, Long Beach CA
Kreg Yingst, Printmaking, Pensacola FL

Those artists recognized with an Honorable Mention are guaranteed an invitation to return to the festival in 2010.

JURORS
The jurors this year are John Garrett, sculptor and fiber artist from Albuquerque, New Mexico; Katie Gingrass, owner of the Katie Gingrass contemporary art and fine craft gallery; and Dean Sobel, director of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver and the Milwaukee Art Museum’s former chief curator and curator of contemporary art.

CO-CHAIRS AND SPONSORS
This year’s co-chairs are Ryan Gray, senior investment consultant at Robert W. Baird, and Laura Lukas, director of quality assurance at Rockwell Automation. The festival is produced by Friends of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum’s largest support group.

The 47th Lakefront Festival of Arts is presented by Quad/Graphics and Milwaukee Magazine and is sponsored by Miller Lite, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, State Farm Insurance, Northwestern Mutual Foundation and Concordia University.
 
FESTIVAL HOURS
Saturday, June 20:      10 a.m.-7 p.m.
Sunday, June 21:        10 a.m.-5p.m.

TICKETS
General public:            $10 at the gate
Kids 16 and under:      Free with a paid adult
MAM members:           $7 with valid membership card

PARKING AND FESTIVAL ACCESS
Official parking is available for $7 per car on Lagoon Drive. To park here, follow the signs traveling north on Lincoln Memorial Drive and turn right onto Lagoon. A complimentary shuttle will provide continual transportation to and from the parking area as well as the south Festival entrance. Attendees can park their bikes free in the Festival’s bike corral located inside the south Festival entrance.
 
Parking is also available for a fee at O’Donnell Park (enter from Lincoln Memorial Drive). Disabled visitors and their companions may enter the festival through a wheelchair-accessible entrance of the west side of Lincoln Memorial Drive (located near the entrance to O’Donnell Park).
 
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 “Best Design of 2001.” For information on the Milwaukee Art Museum, please visit www.mam.org <http://www.mam.org/> .

ABOUT THE LAKEFRONT FESTIVAL OF ARTS
What originally started more than 50 years ago as an event at a private residence where art was hung on clotheslines has grown to Milwaukee’s Lakefront Festival of Arts, an event that has dazzled art enthusiasts and artists from around the country. LFOA attracts more than 20,000 art enthusiasts and festival-goers alike each year during its three-day run thanks to its winning combination of art, entertainment and great food.
 

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The Eight and American Modernisms examines the distinct aesthetic agendas of The Eight artists from 1908 to the end of their careers. The conventional assessment of The Eight’s artistic partnership has focused primarily on themes of urban “realism”—to the exclusion of exploring their artistic individuality. Past scholarship has not considered the legacy of the group’s creative diversity, which Henri praised as an imaginative freedom that follows “no unity in any cult of painting.” The Eight and American Modernisms shows that Robert Henri (1865-1929) and his colleagues were “anti-realist” or expressionist, painting from memory and imagination.

This exhibition is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, the New Britain Museum of American Art, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. The exhibition is curated by Elizabeth Kennedy, curator of collection at the Terra Foundation for American Art; co-curated by Douglas Hyland, director of the New Britain Museum of American Art, and Joseph D. Ketner II, former chief curator of the Milwaukee Art Museum; and coordinated at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Liz Flaig, curatorial department administrator.

Terra Foundation for American Art is the lead sponsor.
The Caxambas Foundation is the Milwaukee Art Museum’s presenting lead sponsor.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
The Eight and American Modernisms features essays on each of the eight artists in addition to several color illustrations being published for the first time. It includes a checklist, a chronology of major exhibitions and awards of The Eight, and a chapter disputing the conventional wisdom that these artists’ reputations were short-lived. Hardcover, 177 pages.  Available at the Milwaukee Art Museum Store ($29.95/$26.95 Member): 414-224-3210 or www.mam.org/store.

PRESS PREVIEW
Wednesday, June 3, noon–2 p.m.
Join exhibition curators for an exclusive tour of the exhibition, followed by refreshments and opportunities for Q&A.

SYMPOSIUM
What’s Modern about American Art, 1900-1930?
June 19-20, 2009
Chicago and Milwaukee
This two-day symposium convened by the Terra Foundation will address the questions of American modernism through a series of brief “keyword” talks and panel discussions. Michael Kammen, Newton C. Farr Professor Emeritus of American History and Culture at Cornell University, delivers the keynote lecture on Friday in Chicago, while exhibition curator Elizabeth Kennedy of the Terra Foundation joins others in Milwaukee for a second full program on Saturday.  For a complete list of participants, more information, or to register, call 312-654-2278 or visit http://terraamericanart.org/modernism-symposium.

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 “Best Design of 2001.”

IMAGES AND INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

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The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Chipstone Foundation, and American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation. The exhibition is curated by Joseph Cunningham and organized in Milwaukee by Sarah Fayen, curator at the Chipstone Foundation.

ABOUT THE FURNITURE
With roots in the Aesthetic Movement and an art-for-art’s-sake sensibility, Charles Rohlfs’ style was related to the abstract naturalism of Art Nouveau, but drew on precedents from Asian and Moorish to English and Germanic designs. In turn, his work influenced the pared-down oak forms that became hallmarks of the Arts and Crafts movement. Rohlfs preferred the terms “Artistic Furniture” or “The Rohlfs Style” that identified his designs not as part of a specific style or movement but, rather, as expressive art made by a single individual.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Charles Rohlfs (1853–1936), the son of a cabinetmaker who worked for piano companies in Brooklyn, trained in drafting and design at the Cooper Union in New York City. A successful patternmaker and, eventually, a patent-earning designer of cast-iron stoves, Rohlfs changed his Brooklyn City Directory listing from “patternmaker” to “actor” in 1881 and married the novelist Anna Katharine Green in 1884. The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs for the first time credits Green as a collaborator in the artist’s work.

Rohlfs had several jobs with traveling theater companies, playing roles in different cities around the country. He was already in his mid-forties when he started to make furniture professionally, around 1897. Before his death in 1936, Rohlfs had earned entry into the Royal Society of Arts in London, sold his furniture through Marshall Field & Co., and exhibited at international exhibitions in the U.S. and in Europe. His obituary was published in the
New York Times.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Featuring the very best works of Charles Rohlfs’ career as a furniture maker, the exhibition of approximately forty-five objects is organized chronologically, beginning with the artist’s earliest known works from about 1888. Lenders include the Princeton University Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and several others.

The exhibition will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art (September 20, 2009–January 3, 2010), Carnegie Museum of Art (January 30, 2010–April 25, 2010), and Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (May 22, 2010–September 6, 2010) before completing its tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (October 19, 2010–January 23, 2011).

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs, by Joseph Cunningham with a foreword by Bruce Barnes and an introduction by Sarah Fayen, is published by Yale University Press in association with American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation. Handsomely designed and illustrated, the book is the most comprehensive publication to date on the artist, and includes a complete set of unpublished period illustrations of over seventy works. 304 pages. Hardcover ($65/$58.50 Member) and softcover editions ($50/$45 Member, available 5/09) are available in the Museum Store, 414-224-3210 or www.mam.org/store.

PRESS PREVIEW
Wednesday, June 3, noon–2 p.m.
Join exhibition curators for an exclusive tour of the exhibition, followed by refreshments and opportunities for Q&A.

SYMPOSIUM
What’s Modern about American Art, 1900-1930?
June 19–20, 2009
Chicago and Milwaukee
This two-day symposium convened by the Terra Foundation will address the questions of American modernism through a series of brief “keyword” talks and panel discussions. Michael Kammen, Newton C. Farr Professor Emeritus of American History and Culture at Cornell University, delivers the keynote lecture on Friday in Chicago, while exhibition curators Joseph Cunningham and Sarah Fayen join Elizabeth Kennedy of the Terra Foundation and others in Milwaukee on Saturday. For a complete list of participants, more information, or to register, call 312-654-2278 or visit http://terraamericanart.org/modernism-symposium.

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 “Best Design of 2001.”

IMAGES AND INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

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