Grohmann Museum

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Grohmann Museum
Milwaukee August 2022 122 (Grohmann Museum).jpg
Exterior of the Grohmann Museum
Grohmann Museum
Interactive fullscreen map
Established2007
Location1000 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Coordinates 43°2′37.702″N87°54′28.598″W / 43.04380611°N 87.90794389°W / 43.04380611; -87.90794389
Type Fine arts, with a focus on work-related art
Public transit accessAiga bus trans.svg MCTS
BSicon TRAM.svg The Hop
Website www.msoe.edu/grohmann-museum
An aerial view of a mosaic Wiki grohmann museum 2.jpg
An aerial view of a mosaic
A view of a ceiling mural Wiki grohmann museum 3.jpg
A view of a ceiling mural
Four highly-detailed stained glass windows Wiki grohmann museum 1.jpg
Four highly-detailed stained glass windows
The Mining gallery at the Grohmann Museum Grohmann Museum January 2024 02 (Mining).jpg
The Mining gallery at the Grohmann Museum

The Grohmann Museum, at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, houses an art collection dedicated to the evolution of human work. The museum opened on October 27, 2007 and is located at 1000 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. [1] It is next to the German-English Academy Building.

Contents

Overview

The museum has three floors of galleries where a core collection and feature exhibitions are displayed. The museum also has a rooftop sculpture garden, a vending cafe, and a museum store. [2]

It is named in honor of Eckhart Grohmann, an MSOE regent, Milwaukee businessman, and avid art collector, who donated the "Man at Work" collection to MSOE in 2001 and subsequently the funds to purchase, renovate, and operate the museum that bears his name. [3] The collection displayed at the rooftop was sculpted and cast in bronze by German-Filipino sculptor Franz Herbich.

German artist Hans Dieter Tylle created stained glass, a mosaic atrium floor, a ceiling mural, and a rooftop mural for the museum. [4]

The collection

The Grohmann Museum Collection contains over 1500 European and American paintings, sculptures and works on paper that depict various forms of work. [5] Captured on canvas and paper or cast in bronze, the works reflect a variety of artistic styles and subjects that document the evolution of organized work, from manpower and horsepower to water, steam and electric power. The collection spans over 400 years of history (17-21st centuries).

Earlier paintings depict men and women working on the farm or at home. Later images show tradespeople engaged in their work, such as blacksmiths, chemists, cobblers, cork makers, glass blowers, or taxidermists. The most recent works are images of machines and men embodying the paradoxes of industrialism of the mid-18th century to post-World War II. These works, often commissioned by the factory's owner, are exterior views of steel mills and foundries surrounded by trains and tracks or dark factory interiors where glowing molten metal is juxtaposed with factory workers and managers.

Most of the works in the Grohmann Museum collection are by German and Dutch artists, although others were created by American, Austrian, Belgian, Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, English, Hungarian, Flemish, French and Spanish artists

Artists include Flemish painter Marten van Valckenborch (1535–1612); Dutch artists Pieter Brueghel the Younger(1564–1638) and Jan Josefsz van Goyen (1596–1656); German painters Carl Spitzweg (1808–1885), Ludwig Knaus (1829–1910), Max Liebermann (1847–1935) and Erich Mercker (1891–1973); American painters J. G. Brown (1831–1913) and F. A. Bridgman (1847–1928); and French painter Julien Dupré (1851–1910).

Exhibitions

The inaugural special exhibition Physicians, Quacks, and Alchemists, showed 17th century medical paintings and ran from October 27, 2007 to April 14, 2008, followed by:[ citation needed ]

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References

  1. "Grohmann Museum". Milwaukee School of Engineering - MSOE. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  2. "Grohmann Museum". Milwaukee School of Engineering - MSOE. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  3. "Grohmann Museum". Milwaukee School of Engineering - MSOE. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  4. "Building Features". Milwaukee School of Engineering - MSOE.
  5. "Grohmann Museum". Milwaukee School of Engineering - MSOE. Retrieved 2023-04-27.