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 premiered 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 [...]

Milwaukee Art Museum acquires masterpiece of American art by John Singleton Copley

MILWAUKEE, WIS.- 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 [...]

Milwaukee Art Museum Receives $7.6 Million Bequest from the Estate of Leonard and Bebe Levine

MILWAUKEE, WI.- 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 [...]

Chinese Contemporary Warriors Stand in Formation at the Milwaukee Art Museum

MILWAUKEE, WIS.- The Milwaukee Art Museum presents 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 [...]

The IVAM is hosting a major retrospective of Jasper Johns (1930).

Valencia – Today opens its doors at the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (Valencia) the exposition Jasper Johns. The memory traces. Exhibitions dedicated to this American artist are rare in general and even more in Europe. The IVAM presents today, including a hundred pieces, consists of works spanning a 50-year career. Jasper Johns This selection of paintings -23 paintings, 9 sculptures and 59 technical-paper comes from American and European museums (National Gallery of Art, Washington, MFAH, Houston, Whitney Museum, New [...]

Milwaukee Art Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art Wager Masterpiece on Super Bowl XLV

MILWAUKEE, WI.- In keeping with the tradition of friendly wagers, Carnegie Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museumare 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 [...]

Milwaukee Art Museum to Celebrate Architecture in 2011 with Ambitious Exhibition

MILWAUKEE, WI.- To celebrate the 10th anniversary of its iconic addition designed by Santiago Calatrava, the Milwaukee Art Museum has announced an ambitious exhibition and program series for 2011 that focuses on architecture. The Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion—whose moving parts are unprecedented in U.S. architecture—has resulted in a revitalized waterfront in Milwaukee, allowed for acclaimed exhibitions, and more than doubled Museum attendance. The 2011 anniversary program will present three exhibitions, Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century (February 12–May [...]

Milwaukee Art Museum Opens New Exhibition on European Design Since 1985

MILWAUKEE, WI.- The Milwaukee Art Museum’s newest feature exhibition, European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century, opens this Saturday, October 9. It is the first encompassing, critical assessment of contemporary Western European design from 1985 to 2005. European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century will present more than 200 seminal works including furniture, ceramics, metalwork, glass and product design that reveal the extraordinary creativity of over 100 European designers. The exhibition defines Europe’s central role in driving design’s [...]

Kohl’s Donates More than $2.7 Million to Milwaukee Art Museum

MENOMONEE FALLS, WIS.- Today Kohl’s Department Stores announced a more than $2.7 million donation over three years to the Milwaukee Art Museum that will continue the successful Kohl’s Art Generation program launched in 2008 as well as create new programs for kids and families. Building on the $1 million contribution from Kohl’s in 2008, this donation is the largest gift to an education initiative in the Museum’s history. The donation comes from the Kohl’s Cares(R) cause merchandise program, which sells [...]

Show at Brooklyn Museum Unveils Andy Warhol’s Catholic, Abstract Side

NEW YORK (REUTERS).- As a pop art pioneer, Andy Warhol blazed his way to fame with trademark Brillo soap pad boxes and silk-screens of Campbell’s Soup cans. But a new museum exhibit shows pop art was just a seven-year phase for Warhol in the 1960s, before his 1980s plunge into abstract art and Christian imagery, particularly his versions of “The Last Supper.” Flippant, brazen and flamboyant as an art world personality, Warhol long kept private his devout, lifelong Catholicism. “Only [...]

Theaster Gates Artist Installation To Speculate Darkly Reinterprets Craft and Fosters Community

MILWAUKEE, WI.- Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates, Jr. has reached out to area craftspeople and the African-American community to reinterpret for the present day the legacy of Dave Drake, a slave in antebellum South Carolina who famously adorned his pots with poetic couplets. The installation, titled To Speculate Darkly, will transform the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Decorative Arts Gallery from April 16 through August 1, 2010, into an engaging exploration into the significance of craft labor and race in America. To Speculate [...]

8 Most Original Art Museums Exterior Designs

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum is an art museum in Denver, Colorado (DUH!). New design of the building was created by Studio Daniel Libeskind and Denver company named Davis Partnership Architects. As you can see this concept design is based on shape irregularities and changing vectors. Pretty impressive and spectacular exterior design makes this building one of the most remarkable sights in Colorado. Lentos Art Museum Lentos Art Museum is situated in City of Linz, Austria. Zurich architects [...]

Milwaukee Art Museum to Show Raphael Painting

MILWAUKEE .- Rarely lent from the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy, Raphael Sanzio’s painting “The Woman with the Veil” is making its last United States’ appearance likely for many years at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Responding to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” Raphael developed his own idea of beauty in the portrait, which was completed around 1516. Raphael (nee Raphael Sanzio), Italian, 1483-1520, La Donna Velata or La Velata, c. 1516, (The Woman with a Veil), Oil on canvas, 85 [...]

Major Exhibition of 1940s and ’50s’ Street Photography Opens in Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE, WI.- A unique and pivotal moment in American history will be explored in “Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography 1940-1959″, on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum January 30 through April 25, 2010. The exhibition, which showcases urban street photography from the 1940s and ‘50s, provides new insight into a time when the photographic medium and American society were both at a cultural crossroads. “The essence of the images captured in Street Seen suggest some compelling parallels [...]