Gallery Night features more Man at Work collection highlights; commissioned painting on display
| Published: 04/14/2004 |
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Milwaukee School of Engineering’s (MSOE) art collection, Man at Work, will be a featured exhibition during the citywide Spring Gallery Night and Day 5-9 p.m. Friday, April 16 and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, April 17.
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. The collection includes works by artists such as Jan Brueghel II, Marten van Valckenborch, Jan Josefsz van Goyen, Max Liebermann and Constantin-Emile Meunier.
Of special interest for this edition of Gallery Night and Day is The Iron Rolling Mill by German artist Hans Dieter Tylle (b. 1954), who has made a number of commissioned paintings for Milwaukee-area companies such as Aluminum Casting and Engineering, Charter Steel, Mechanical Industries, Kohler Company, Res Corp. and Kondex Corp. The Eckhart G. Grohmann Collection commissioned this full-sized reproduction of the noted painting, The Iron Rolling Mill by Adolph Menzel (German, 1815-1905), which hangs in the National Gallery collection in Berlin. Because Menzel used a tar material in his oil paint, his paintings continue to darken and eventually be indiscernible; the copy was commissioned to preserve it for posterity.
Other highlights from Man at Work also will be on display during Gallery Night and Day. The artworks were gifted to MSOE over the past year from the private collection of Milwaukee businessman and collector Dr. Eckhart Grohmann, an MSOE Regent.
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. The show will be open 5-9 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.
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 or log onto the Web site msoe.edu/manatwork.