Museum of Wisconsin Art

I think the Museum of Wisconsin Art -formerly known as the West Bend Art Museum- is an exemplar of what a relatively small museum can be. Under its former director, Tom Lidtke, it transformed from a one artist nonentity into the best of its kind. How? Litdke decided that while they would never have the resources to compete with the Milwaukee Art Museum or the Elvehjem Museum of Art (now the Chazen Museum of Art) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the museum could still be the best in the world at something if they focussed tightly enough.

He chose to make the museum the main storehouse of art and archives of Wisconsin artists who worked prior to 1950, the cut off date intended in part to reduce political infighting among living artists.

Lidtke succeeded brilliantly. After roughly 25 years of his guidance, the museum is the place to go for anything to do with Wisconsin art. It is also slowly moving to collect pre-European Wisconsin Indian art, and showing contemporary pieces as well. He spearheaded the new building on the east side of the river, making it more visible than the original, red brick former insurance agency building several blocks away, and going with a contemporary design.

When Tom Lidtke retired as the new building was finished, the museum hired a powerhouse curator from the Milwaukee Art Museum, Laurie Winters. If the membership numbers in this article are accurate, Winters has done quite a job of building on what Lidtke created.

The Museum of Wisconsin Art

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a long article about the new Museum of Wisconsin Art building.

The last director, Tom Lidtke, took the museum from utter nonentity to what I consider an exemplar of what a relatively small museum can be.

It will be interesting to see the direction in which Laurie Winters, the new director, takes the museum. She curated some great exhibits while at the Milwaukee Art Museum, including one on art from Polish collections which included a portrait by Leonardo da Vinciwhich I think is more beautiful than the Mona Lisa.

The Oshkosh Decoy Show...

...starts on Thursday with walkabout at the Hilton Garden Inn, in, perhaps not too surprisingly, Oshkosh, WI. A friend is coming from Delaware tomorrow to spend the nite here before we drive up on Thursday AM.

We shall likely stop briefly at the West Bend Art Museum to check out the Owen Gromme mechanical Canada goose field decoy which Gromme's daughter Anne Marie donated last year. It is without doubt the most complex mechanical decoy known to exist. Gromme made it c.1950 by carving a reproduction of the flight skeleton in wood and welded and forged iron, real goose wing feathers, and covered it with a papier mache shell body and head.

When a string is pulled the body tilts from horizontal to c.40 degrees, the head pivots at the neck joint so that it stays upright, and the wings unfold and flap in an anatomically accurate manner. When the string is released the body resumes the horizontal and the wings fold up. Pretty wild.

Milwaukee objects conservator Cricket Harbeck cleaned it up and made some minor repairs last year and Milwaukee Public Museum mount maker Emilio Bras made a metal mount to support the wings so one could be unfolded, with the side of the body removed so ppl can see the mechanism.

Not sure what all will turn up at the decoy show- some years nothing very interesting walks in, and some years it does. I'll be satisfied if this durn flu which has now been beleaguering me for 13 days finally is over when I wake up tomorrow.

Which reminds me: It's time to set up the coffee maker and go to bed.