The Grohmann Museum, at the

Milwaukee School of Engineering The Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) is a private university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The campus is in the List of neighborhoods of Milwaukee, East Town neighborhood of downtown Milwaukee. The school's enrollment of 2,820 includes 224 g ...

, 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 Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, United States. It is next to the German-English Academy Building.

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. It is named in honor of Eckhart Grohmann, an MSOE regent,

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. 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.

The collection

The Grohmann Museum Collection contains over 1500 European and American paintings, sculptures and works on paper that depict various forms of work. 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

taxidermist Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body via mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the proc ...

s. The most recent works are images of machines and men embodying the paradoxes of

industrialism Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econom ...

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 Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

painter Marten van Valckenborch (1535–1612); Dutch artists

Pieter Brueghel the Younger Pieter Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Younger (, ; ; between 23 May and 10 October 1564 – between March and May 1638) was a Flemish painter, known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work as well as h ...

(1564–1638) and

Jan Josefsz van Goyen Jan Josephszoon van Goyen (; 13 January 1596 – 27 April 1656) was a Dutch landscape painter. The scope of his landscape subjects was very broad as he painted forest landscapesm marines, river landscapes, beach scenes, winter landscape, cityscap ...

(1596–1656); German painters

Carl Spitzweg Carl Spitzweg (February 5, 1808 – September 23, 1885) was a German romanticist painter, especially of genre subjects. He is considered to be one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier era. Life and career Spitzweg was born in U ...

(1808–1885), Ludwig Knaus (1829–1910),

Max Liebermann Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...

(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 Julien Dupré (, March 18, 1851 – April, 1910) was a French painter. He was born in Paris on March 18, 1851 to Jean Dupré (a jeweler) and Pauline Bouillié. It was expected that he enter the family business, and to that end Dupré began wo ...

(1851–1910).

Gallery

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: * ''Stone'' April 18, 2008 - July 14, 2008 * ''A Focus on Figures'' July 25, 2008 - October 4, 2008 * ''American Steel: Works from the Collection of Tom and Lorie Annarella'' October 17, 2008 - January 4, 2009 * ''Cradle of Industry: Works from the Rhineland Industrial Museum'' January 16 - April 5, 2009 * ''Wisconsin at Work: Thorsten Lindberg Paintings and Drawings from the MCHS Collection'' April 17 - August 14, 2009 * ''The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885)'' May 15 - October 4, 2009 * ''Midwest Murals: Joe Jones and J.B. Turnbull from the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University'' September 4 - December 6, 2009 * ''Foundry Work: A View of the Industry, The Photographs of Michael Schultz'' January 15 – April 5, 2010 * ''Working Wisconsin: Selections from the Museum of Wisconsin Art'' April 16 – August 20, 2010 * ''Wonders of Work and Labor: The Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art, Penn State University'' September 18, 2010 - January 3, 2011 * ''Lake Boats: The Photography of Jim Brozek and Christopher Winters'' January 14 - April 3, 2011 * ''Milwaukee Mills: A Visual History'' April 15 – August 21, 2011 * ''Requiem for Steam: The Railroad Photographs of David Plowden'' September 23 – December 11, 2011 * ''Working Legacies: The Death and (After)Life of Post-Industrial Milwaukee'' December 16, 2011 - February 6, 2012 * ''H. D. Tylle: Touring Germany and Working in Wisconsin'' February 17 - April 22, 2012 * ''Great Lakers: Selections from the Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library'' May 11 - August 6, 2012 * ''Carl Spitzweg: The Poor Poet and Other Characters'' August 20 - December 30, 2012 * ''MSOE at Work: Selections from the Campus Archives'' September 7 - December 17, 2012 * ''Bridges: The Spans of North America - Photographs by David Plowden'' January 18 - April 28, 2013 * ''Born of Fire: Scenes of Industry from the Westmoreland Museum of American Art'' May 24 - August 18, 2013 * ''A Working Ranch by Jim Brozek'' September 6 - December 13, 2013 * ''Trains that Passed in the Night: Railroad Photographs of O Winston Link'' January 17 - April 27, 2014 * ''Art Shay: Working'' May 16 - August 17, 2014 * ''Erich Mercker: Painter of Industry'' September 5 - December 14, 2014 * ''The Art of the Milwaukee Road'' January 16 - April 26, 2015 * ''Carl Spitzweg in Milwaukee'' April 9 - September 13, 2015 * ''H.D. Tylle: Studies'' April 17 - June 28, 2015 * ''Metal for Mettle: Historic Commemorative Medals Honoring Labor and Achievement'' May 15 - August 23, 2015 * ''Forge Work: New Photography by Michael Schultz'' September 4 - December 13, 2015 * ''Art of the North Shore Line'' January 22 - April 24, 2016 * ''Milwaukee's Industrial Landscapes: Paintings by Michael Newhall'' May 27 - August 21, 2016 * ''On the Job: Photography by Jim Seder'' September 9 - December 11, 2016 * ''STEEL: The Cycle of Industry by David Plowden'' January 20 - April 30, 2017 * ''Artists at Work: The Cedarburg Artists Guild'' May 19 - August 20, 2017 * ''Masterworks from the Grohmann Museum - Celebrating 10 Years'' September 8 - December 29, 2017 * ''The Art and Mechanics of Animation'' January 19 - April 29, 2018 * ''Wallace W. Abbey: A Life in Railroad Photography'' May 11 - August 19, 2018 * ''David Plowden's Portraits of Work'' September 7 - December 30, 2018 * ''Growing Place: A Visual Study of Urban Farming'' January 18 - April 28, 2019 * ''Roll Up Your Sleeves'' May 17 - August 18, 2019 * ''The Magnificent Machines of Milwaukee'' September 6, 2019 - January 26, 2020 * ''IRONBOAT: New Photography by Christopher Winters'' January 17 - August 7, 2020 * ''TWO EDMUNDS: Fitzgerald and Lewandowski—Their Mark on Milwaukee'' September 10 - December 29, 2020 * ''Electric Steel: Recent Photographs by Michael Schultz'' January 15 - April 25, 2021 * ''artWORK by the League of Milwaukee Artists'' May 21 - August 22, 2021 * ''The Railroad and the Art of Place: Photographs by David Kahler'' September 10 - December 19, 2021 * ''Robert O. Lahmann: Working in Wisconsin'' January 21 - April 24, 2022 * ''Familias Unidas: Tribute to the Migrant Farm Worker Labor Movement in Wisconsin, 1960s-70'' April 22 - August 21, 2022 * ''A Time of Toil and Triumph: Selections from the Shogren-Meyer Collection of American Art'' September 9, 2022 - February 26, 2023

References

External links

*
Virtual tour of the Grohmann Museum
provided by Google Arts & Culture * {{authority control Art museums established in 2007 Museums in Milwaukee Art museums and galleries in Wisconsin University museums in Wisconsin 2007 establishments in Wisconsin Milwaukee School of Engineering