The Eckhart G. Grohmann Collection Man at Work
at Milwaukee School of Engineering
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| Frederick Arthur Bridgman, The Seaweed Gatherers, 1912 |
The earlier paintings depict the early forms of work, such as men and women working on the farm or at home. Later images show trades people engaged in their work, such as the blacksmith, chemist, cobbler, cork maker, glass blower and taxidermist. 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 hefty trains and tracks or dark factory interiors where glowing molten metal is juxtaposed with factory workers and managers.
Most of the paintings are by German and Dutch artists, although others include American, Austrian, Belgian, Bohemian, Danish,Dutch, English, Hungarian, Flemish, French and Spanish.
Earliest work: ca. 1580s oil painting, The Element of Fire, by a student of Italian painter Francesco Bassano [1559-1592].
Latest work: 2007 bronze sculpture, Sturgeon Fisherman, by Wisconsin sculptor Andy Schumann
Highlights:
- Flemish painter Marten van Valckenborch (1535-1612), River Valley with Iron Smelter, ca.1600
- Dutch artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638), The Peasant Lawyer
- Dutch artist Jan Josefsz van Goyen (1596-1656), A River Landscape with Lime-Kilns
- German painter Ludwig Knaus (1829-1910), Magician in the Barn, 1862
- American painter J.G. Brown (1831-1913), Extra, Extra (The Paper Boy), 1904
- American painter F.A. Bridgman (1847-1928), Seaweed Gatherers, 1912
- German painter Max Liebermann (1847-1935) an oil painting that led to his renowned Flax Barn at Laren painting, now at the National Gallery in Berlin.
- French painter Julien Dupré (1851-1910), Stacking Grain Sheafs
- German artist Erich Mercker (1891-1973) The collection includes 81 works by Mercker who, working in loose brushwork style, rendered colorful images of steel mills and foundries, bridge- and ship-building, quarries and interior views of factories.
- Bronze sculptures include: Longshoremen, farmers, miners, foundry workers and other laborers in the process of using the tools of their trades. Artists include Adrien-Etienne Gaudez, Gerhard Adolf Janensch, Constantin-Emile Meunier, Emile Louis Picault, and Americans Malcom Alexander, Max Kalish, Landon Lamb and Frederic Remington.
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Grohmann Museum |