MSOE artwork on view during citywide Gallery Night
| Published: 07/20/2004 |
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Milwaukee School of Engineering's (MSOE) art collection, Man at Work, will be a featured exhibition during the citywide Summer Gallery Night and Day 5-9 p.m. Friday, July 23 and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, July 24.
The show will feature just a portion of the 450 European and American paintings and sculptures that comprise Man at Work: The Eckhart G. Grohmann Collection at Milwaukee School of Engineering. It is one of the world's most comprehensive collections to document the evolution of work over the past 400 years, from manpower and horsepower to industrialism's water, steam and electrical power.
Of special interest for this edition of Gallery Night and Day is The Peasant Lawyer, an oil painting by Dutch artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564(5)-1637(8)). he son of renowned 16th century painter, Brueghel is known for both his own works as well as popularizing his father's works with his own versions of witty scenes that exposed human shortcomings and folly, peasant life and landscapes. The Peasant Lawyer lampoons the legal profession with a scene of an untidy office of a village lawyer being pressed by nervous and imploring plaintiffs who seek to pay for his services in kind - with eggs, grapes and poultry. The caricatured faces in particular suggest the satirical theme is that of gullible country people being bamboozled by greedy lawyers similar to the proverb "go to law for a sheep and lose a cow."
Dr. Eckhart Grohmann bought The Peasant Lawyer at a Sotheby's auction in 1997. Similar paintings are in the collections at Norwich Castle Museum in England, the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin and the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp.
Gallery Night and Day is a unique opportunity to see these works at the landmark MSOE Alumni Partnership Center, 1120 N. Broadway (at Highland). On the National Register of Historic Places, the cream-city brick and limestone structure was built in 1890 as headquarters for Blatz Brewing Co. A 432-page, full-color book has been published in conjunction with this collection and will be available for purchase.
Gallery Night and Day is free and open to the public. For more information, call MSOE at (414) 277-7501.