MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM

MAGAZINE

A brief tour through one of the finest American Museums

The Collection
         The collection comprises more than 20,000 works of art from ancient to contemporary. It includes 15th- to 20th-century European and American painting, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, decorative arts, and folk and outsider art.
The Building
         The Milwaukee Art Museum is the city's "masterpiece on the lakefront" "Designed by famed architect Eero Saarinen, the museum was built in 1957 as part of the landmark War Memorial Center, and includes a 1975 addition designed by David Kahler. A major expansion designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava is slated to open in 2000.
The History
         The Milwaukee Art Museum had its origin in two institutions, the Layton Art Gallery, established in 1888, and the Milwaukee Art Institute, founded in the early 1900s. These two institutions joined forces in 1957 to form the private, non-profit Milwaukee Art Center (now the Milwaukee Art Museum), and moved to its current location.

The Richard and Erna Flagg Collection of Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Art

                              Richard and Erna Flagg both born in Frankfurt, Germany were part of Milwaukee’s enormous influx of German immigrants. Richard, who eventually became the chairman and CEO of Flagg Tanning Corp., began his lifelong affection for collecting art and objects at the age of 12 when he began collecting ancient coins. In 1991 the Flaggs donated 51 objects from their collection of Medieval and Renaissance sculpture, furniture and decorative arts to the museum. The rarity and historic significance of the objects place it among the most important single donations of European decorative arts to a museum in the U.S.   The collection includes a number of rare and visually stunning clocks and
timepieces, tablewares and vessels such as an ewer by Pierre Reymond for Limoges, ebony table-cabinets with ivory inlay, game boards, locks and garment belts. Important religious works include house altars, a Limoges processional cross, a silver flamboyant-style Gothic monstrance, ivory and gilt corpus figures, and a beautifully carved and polychromed sculpture of St. George slaying the dragon.

European Old Masters The Milwaukee Art Museum began to acquire earlier artworks in 1891 with the addition of a floral still life, Flowers, ca. 1770, by Dutch artist Jan van Os. The earliest painting in the museum’s collection is a spectacular 14th-century Madonna and Child alterpiece by Florentine artist Nardo di Cione, acquired in 1995. The museum has particularly rich holdings of 17th-century art, including a core group of Dutch Baroque works by Ferdinand Bol and a pair of portraits by Govaert Flinck. Saint Francis by the 17th-century Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbaran represents the Spanish Baroque era. Major French work include Philippe de Champaigne’s Moses with the Tables of the Law and Jean Honoré Frangonard’s The Shepherdess. The collection expanded through the generosity of Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Bader and Mr. and Mrs. Myron Laskin.

The Layton Art Collection and 19th-Century American and European Art English born Frederick Layton, who made his fortune in Milwaukee with a meatpacking business, opened the Milwaukee Art Museum's predecessor, the Layton Art Gallery, in 1888. At that time the galleries contained 65 19th-century European and American paintings. Today the Layton collection features a range of 19th-century works by artists closely associated with academic traditions. The collection has continued to grow with contributions made by the Layton Art Collection’s board of trustees. Highlights from the collection include Jonathan Eastman Johnson’s The Old Stagecoach, Winslow Homer’s Hark! the Lark and Jules Bastien-Lepage’s Père Jacques (The Woodgatherer, shown above).
Other outstanding 19th-century artworks in the museum’s collection include Impressionist works by French artists Claude Monet, Gustave Caillebotte and Edgar Degas, and by Americans Edmund C. Tarbell and William Merritt Chase. In 1911, Samuel O. Buckner, an insurance executive, civic leader and president of MAM’s board of trustees, made significant contributions, especially works from the School of the Hague.

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