Past Exhibitions
Shared Paths Through Ozaukee County
Watercolor scenes of Ozaukee County by Alice Struck are to be exhibited in Shared Paths through Ozaukee County. Each painting will be accompanied by a storyboard focusing on a natural treasure written by naturalist Andrew Struck who is Ozaukee County’s Park and Planning Director and Alice’s son. Together, the insights of an artist and scientist reveal appreciation and stewardship of the natural world around us.
Andrew Struck has served as the Director of the Planning and Parks Department for Ozaukee County, WI for over 15 years and has more than 20 years of experience in park and trail development, natural resource / ecological planning, protection, restoration and management, Great Lakes fish and wildlife habitat, environmental policy and education. Andrew has an M.S. in Applied Ecology / Regional Planning from Indiana University – Bloomington and a B.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Sky: Climate Transformed
January 26 to May 14, 2023
Artworks created in a variety of media by 14 diverse visual artists have been selected for exhibition. In addition to a shared connection to Wisconsin, each artist has also lived and worked in various parts of the world such as Canada, Southeast Asia, Mexico and other regions of the United States. This includes the vision of indigenous artists and their relationship to the land and the environment.
Up to 50 works in various mediums will be exhibited, allowing for many thematic interpretations and experience to surface. The public will have the opportunity to interact with the work as an observer and/or as an active participant through their involvement in the corresponding educational programming.
Art of Charles Porteus
January 26 to April 16, 2023
Charles Porteus (1867-1943) gained recognition for his wax figure modeling and scene painting at the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) from 1919 to 1940. Born in New York City, he shifted from a technical career to the arts, working as a stage technician and later becoming a scene painter for the Eden Musée. In 1919, he joined MPM, contributing to historical displays and creating life-size wax figures. Porteus, also an oil landscape painter, blurred the line between career and hobby, drawing inspiration from his wax creations and research trips. His paintings, featured in the exhibition, encompass diverse subjects, from Blackfoot tribesmen to Milwaukee and Cedarburg scenes, reflecting both industrial cityscapes and bucolic landscapes. Explore more about Charles Porteus here.
Objects of Desire
September 29, 2022 to January 8, 2023
The 2022 juror is Shane McAdams. McAdams is an artist living in Cedarburg, WI and Brooklyn, NY. He earned his BA in Art History from the University of Kansas and MFA in Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute. His various roles include being an adjunct professor at Marion University in Fond du Lac, WI, Lecturer, arts writer, and widely exhibited artist. His artwork has been shown in numerous museum, universities, and galleries across the world.
Judith Friebert: Pastel Pastures
October 19, 2022 - January 8, 2023
Essential to Friebert’s artistic vision is her admiration for farmers and her strong commitment to their continuing existence. She appreciates how hard they work to provide food for us amidst the challenges of survival in the increasingly corporate dairy and farming industries.
The American Scene through the Eyes of Gerrit V. Sinclair
September 15, 2022 to January 8, 2023
Gerrit Van Sinclair (1890-1955) was one of Wisconsin’s best-known artists of American Scene painting, also known as American Regionalism. Featured in this exhibition from private collections are sentimental scenes of Milwaukee, Washington, and Ozaukee Counties including an all-American little league game captured in soft, hazy afternoon lighting; the everyday American family enjoying a lazy day in a clean, manicured park; and the quaint and quiet downtown streets of rural towns. Sinclair’s charming paintings combine the American Scene’s mission with distinct warm tones and atmospheric qualities reminiscent of Impressionism.
El Circo sobre la Mesa - A Circus on the Table
August 3 to October 16, 2022
An exciting new exhibition called “El Circo sobre la Mesa: The Circus on the Table” will feature the artwork of Mexican-born artist Francisco Mora. The exhibition opens August 4th at the Cedarburg Art Museum.
Autobiographical elements and a blend of personal mythology, Mexican surrealism, and indigenous symbolism inform the artwork of Milwaukee-based artist Francisco X. Mora. In the exhibition “El Circo sobre la Mesa” (the circus on the table), Mexican-born Mora presents memories from his mother’s home in the little Mexican town of Cuenco de Flores (bowl of flowers).
Mora muses, “It was always a pleasure to sit down at her table. Not only for the food, but for the wonderful, endless conversations. She always had fruit, flowers, a few friendly bugs, and the occasional curious lizard. Soon, I got used to sharing a meal or two with her unusual, yet lovely guests.”
Beauty in Wood: Robert Budecki & Robert HolmesMay 14 to September 25, 2022
While the two wood artists featured in this exhibition never met, their art objects stand well together to show how pieces executed by wood turning, wood working, and wood carving can reveal beauty and expertise in execution.
The art of the late Robert Leroy Holmes of Mequon, WI (1934 – 2018) reveals his wide-ranging skills with wood turning on a large lathe and wood working using a variety of machines and tools. Holmes explored numerous woods to reveal their natural characteristics and defects. In his 40 years of working with wood, Holmes became more aware of wood art in global cultures, and he moved back and forth between turning and wood working. In particular, the creation and tuning of wooden tongue drums is a closely guarded special skill that he mastered.
Love for vein inlay materials and wood dyeing also add unique dimension to numerous objects he created. With functional vessels, bowls, peppermills, kaleidoscopes, pens, bracelets, or objects of sheer beauty, mastery of technique was paramount for Robert Holmes while touches of embellishment added artistic distinction.
A long-time fascination with the natural beauty of waterfowl led Robert Budecki of Cedarburg into a passion of carving and painting a variety of life-like waterfowl. Over the past twenty years Budecki has honed his artistic talent and technical skills studying with world-acclaimed carving artists Pat Godwin, Keith Mueller, Gary Eigenberger and Shaun Minadier at week-long workshops. Budecki works primarily with tupelo wood and paints with acrylic or oil paints and is known for his attention to detail and accurate renditions of wildfowl as well as for the creative vision presented in his pieces. He’s motivated to create for only himself, and while Budecki has been honored with prestigious, national awards for his detailed, naturalistic renderings of waterfowl, his recent explorations and challenges move beyond wildfowl to reveal similar skills in carving and painting song birds and floral, fish, or butterfly subjects.
Susan Hale, Home & Away
Known for bold brushwork and vibrant use of color, Susan Hale’s paintings emit a sense of joy and optimism. “Color is magic to me”, she says. Inspiration for this exhibition comes from her travels around the world and the beauty of her home state, Wisconsin. For Hale, charm and creativity are everywhere, but after traveling the world, she can assuredly say “there is no place like home!”. Explore vivid color and patterns in Hale’s watercolor and oil paintings May 12th through September 25th, 2022.
Tom Lidtke: Polynesian Fusion Overview
May 26 to September 18, 2022
Distinctive cast bronze forms inspired by unusual shapes and complex patterns of Oceanic nations and cultures will be presented on tall pedestals amongst the courtyard gardens of the Cedarburg Art Museum. These “Polynesian Fusion” sculptures were imagined and crafted by West Bend sculptor Tom Lidtke in the 1990s after an influential visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s display of Oceanic art. This summer, his sculptures will enhance the form and texture of the organic material in the outdoor environment.
Lidtke credits the Met’s collection for widening his view of various designs and textures of wood carving found throughout Polynesia. Those forms were traditional, utilitarian objects with surface decorations aesthetically enhanced with stylized textural patterns. While Lidtke spent much of his earlier career working with wood and still enjoys the beauty of woodgrain and handling certain tree species, he wanted to explore the fusing of oceanic inspired forms with cast bronze due to the material’s permanency and ability to create such detail that even fingerprints can be revealed.
Tom Lidtke began his artistic training as hundreds if not thousands of other children did with Jon Gnagy’s television program “Learn to Draw.” A subconscious impact on his art interest was from his late grandmother who was an early 20th Century china painter of landscapes and whose paintings hung on the walls of his childhood home. During his early career, Lidkte taught studio art in Wisconsin and South Australia for a decade. While teaching, he presented an array of artistic styles and media that guided him to find his own style and media choices. Lidtke, the retired Director of the Museum of Wisconsin Art, is the co-author of the Cedarburg Art Museum’s new publication A Creative Place: The History of Wisconsin Art.
Edward Boerner: Paintings and Prints
Cedarburg-born artist Edward Boerner (1902 – 1981) spent over five decades of his artistic career depicting an idealized Wisconsin landscape with the fervor of a devoted, regionalist artist. He was most known for his watercolors, but he often explored and found mastery in other mediums including printmaking. Boerner became deeply embedded and renowned in the artistic community of Wisconsin in the course of his training and most notably, during his lengthy career as a teacher due to his generous nature and influence on many area artists.
After receiving a B.A. in 1926 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Boerner continued his studies at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and University of Iowa where he trained under the notable regionalist painter Grant Wood and received his M.A. in 1940. Meanwhile, Boerner began his teaching career in the mid-1920s with summer art classes in renovated log cabin near Holy Hill, WI and then taught art classes at Koscuszko Junior High School in Milwaukee. From 1940 to 1947, Boerner taught at Milwaukee’s Wisconsin State Teachers College, now known as University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Boerner served as the Head of the art department at Bay View Pulaski and Rufus King High Schools until his retirement in 1967. His career as an outstanding art teacher in the Milwaukee Public School system lasted for 42 years.
Humor: Henke and Hollnagel
May 12 to July 31, 2022
Cedarburg artists Diane Henke and Joan Hollnagel let their imaginations run wild as they explore the expression of comedy, wit, and whimsy. Acrylic paint transforms the flat canvas into joyous and fantastical worlds full of clever creatures while clay is shaped into jovial expressions of human emotion in Humor: Henke & Hollnagel.
Sculptor Diane Henke is inspired by Mother Nature and intrigued by the slight changes in facial expressions of individuals she meets. Her charming clay forms reflect a love of observance matched with an esteem for quality craftsmanship and technique.
For over 60 years, Joan Hollnagel has been crafting visual puns with paint by creating anthropomorphic animals and insects and personified natural elements. Hollnagel explores what it is to be human and our relationship with nature in a comical and lighthearted manner.
The History of Wisconsin Art Exhibition: A Creative Place
January 22 – May 8, 2022
The history of art in Wisconsin is a largely untold story for most of us who call this place home—until now. The History of Wisconsin Art Exhibition: A Creative Place tells the story of our rich artistic past through a thoughtfully curated collection of artwork representing thousands of years of creative endeavor.
The exhibition is predominantly educational and informative, focusing on the state’s rich artistic history. Examples of important artwork will highlight notable stylistic trends and movements within the state’s artistic evolution. The History of Wisconsin Art Exhibition is presented chronologically among the museum’s seven galleries:
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Native Presence: Before 1634
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Encounters and Settlement: 1634-1869
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The Great Cultural Expansion: 1870-1917
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Transitioning from European Ideals to America’s Regional Interests: 1918-1944
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The Post-War Period: 1945-1964
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Activism and Innovation in the Visual Arts: 1965-1980
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The Last Decades of the Twentieth Century: 1981-2000
This visionary exhibition celebrates the completion of a new benchmark in Wisconsin history: the first publication to encompass the 13,000 year history of art in Wisconsin. The book A Creative Place: The History of Wisconsin Art by authors Thomas Lidtke and Annemarie Sawkins and published by the Cedarburg Art Museum elevates art to its rightful place in the proud culture of our state.
The exhibition is curated by Ric Hartman, avid collector of historic Wisconsin artwork and owner of the Gallery of Wisconsin Art.
Mary Ulm Mayhew: My Personal Wisconsin
October 21, 2021 – January 9, 2022
Newburg artist Mary Mayhew has traveled the world to paint landscapes and scenes in every season and light, but it is her farm and studio in rural Newburg, Wisconsin where she finds her greatest and most personal inspiration. Mayhew’s paintings elevate the small moments and everyday scenes of rural life: newly harvested produce at a roadside stand, a white farmhouse cast in gold in the setting sun, the neighbor’s Holsteins gathering by a pond on a hot July day.
Mayhew’s uncommon mastery of color and composition allow her to capture the essence of her outdoor subjects. A vibrant and versatile painter, Mayhew easily transitions between working en plein air and in her studio. Though her process may change, she insists that it is always personal. “I strive to evoke emotion for a sense of place, and hope to convey a rich feeling of nostalgia for viewers while inspiring them to give their attention to the simple beauties of life.”
Recent Museum Collection Additions
September 16, 2021 – January 9, 2022
Through the generosity of donors or careful management of collection funds, the Cedarburg Art Museum has shown steady progress in growing its permanent collection since the original gift of Ozaukee Bank’s 49 paintings in 2013. Recent gifts and strategic acquisitions bring diversity and strength to the collection with artworks that reflect local cultural history or represent significant Wisconsin artists. Pieces in the current show include paintings from the 1930s and 1940s by Wisconsin artists Robert von Neumann, Hans Stoltenberg, Morley Hicks, and Melvin Tess in naturalistic and abstract modes.
In addition, in the past two years the Museum has acquired the artwork of living artists Patrick Doughman and Barb Wagner whose artwork helps to document our local cultural history. Paintings by area artists Claudette Lee-Roseland and Susan Hale were acquired because of their long-term, significant artistic impact in Wisconsin.
In addition, six pieces of artwork by Gibson Byrd were recently donated to the museum collection by the artist’s family. Byrd was an American landscape and figurative painter of Shawnee ancestry who spent 30 years as a member of UW-Madison art faculty. One etching depicts Byrd’s social realism from the late 1950s, while three oil paintings and two pastels depict a self-portrait in a home setting and timeless, lyrical, Wisconsin landscapes from the 1980s and 1990s.
One Square Mile
September 30, 2021 – January 9, 2022
Cedarburg Art Museum’s eighth annual juried show challenged artists to examine their world close to home for new insights and observations. Juror Evelyn Patricia Terry utilized three criteria to score 138 entries and determine artworks for the exhibition. Sixty-two regional artists chose a great variety of subjects to meet the theme of this exhibition with 88 square-format artworks. The solace of Mother Nature in all seasons provided inspiration in rural and urban settings. Glimpses of everyday life, especially on frequent daily routes or close to home, are also revealed. Cedarburg Art Museum’s One Square Mile reveals the beauty and resilience that artists can capture coming out of a world pandemic.
Historic Cedarburg: Then and Now 2018
Juried Exhibition October 3 – December 23, 2018
The “Historic Cedarburg: Then & Now” exhibition showcases 31 artworks celebrating the city’s well-preserved past, where historic buildings find new and meaningful uses in the 21st century. Many artworks depict repurposed historic buildings serving the community, while some focus on original uses, like Julianne Hunter’s “If These Walls Could Talk,” imagining conversations in an iconic barber shop. Doug Witz recreates scenes from Cedarburg’s past in a miniature sculptural environment, earning second place. Kathryn Wedge’s watercolor captures Cedarburg’s main street, earning third place. Honorable mentions went to Patti Doughman, Karla Fuller, and Jerry Steingraeber, with diverse artistic approaches. The exhibition runs until December 23, made possible by the Paul and Philia Hayes Fund.
Don Esser: Forging Ahead
Thursday, June 17 from 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Waunakee sculptor Don Esser has been hammering and twisting metal since 1976. For over 30 years, he worked solely with black iron until one day he came across stacks of boxes filled with vintage stained glass at an antique mall. From then on, Esser has been reinventing traditional blacksmithing methods by incorporating colored glass and manipulating metal into organic shapes.
Throughout the Cedarburg Art Museum’s sculpture garden this summer, metal forms rooted in the function of weather vanes are featured alongside earlier, more abstracted works that reflect a sense of fluidity with minimal lines and playful geometric shapes. In all of his sculptures, Esser approaches each piece with a sense of childlike fearlessness. For Esser, creating sculpture is “a little like stealing fire from the gods and [his] goal is to put a bit of that sense of wonder into each piece.”
John N. Colt: Nature Up-Close
May 14 – September 26, 2021
Nature viewed up-close provided impetus and vision for nearly five decades of the artistic career of John Nicholson Colt (1925-1998). Small- and large-scale renderings of micro habitats and creatures are whimsically transformed in a variety of media by one of Wisconsin’s artistic giants of modernist expression. Twenty interpretations of Colt’s imaginative natural world are gifts to the Cedarburg Art Museum Collection by Ruth Kjaer and the Kohler Foundation, Inc.
The Value of Art
May 13 – September 26, 2021
Creating art can be transformative, especially for individuals who utilize art for therapeutic or developmental purposes. The Value of Art exhibition showcases the work of individuals who create art as therapy and for developmental or personal expression. The exhibition artists enjoyed exploring a variety of media and themes in their artwork, while the viewer can find the value of art in its beauty—as well as in the creative process itself.
A multitude of social agencies in our county provide artistic projects for special needs clients. The artwork in this exhibition comes from Kerry Pratt of Artistry Oasis, LLC, Kären Cohen of Balance, Inc., and Renee Schreiner of Portal, Inc., who persevered in creative ways with artistic opportunities for clients despite the disruptions and challenges of COVID-19. Artwork from Ozaukee County Jail Literacy Project, Inc. submitted by Gina Studelska predates the pandemic. These four agencies are proudly showing more than 60 client artworks in this heart-warming presentation. Artists and art therapists Carol Gengler, Erica Huntzinger, Karen McCormick, and Alice Struck helped formulate plans for this exhibition while Kohler Foundation, Inc. graciously provided support for framing and presentation expenses.
Plein Air: Cedarburg's Best
May 27 – September 12, 2021
Since 2001 with the very first Cedarburg Plein Air Event, either the Ozaukee Bank or its later foundation called The Gift to the Future Fund has provided the event’s Best of Show Purchase Award. All of these stellar artworks are now in the Cedarburg Art Museum Collection. Thirteen of these Best of Show paintings are on display at the museum this summer while the remainder are on display at the Cedarburg Public Library year-round.
Tom Kubala: Walking Through Cedarburg
May 13 – August 1, 2021
In his daily life, Tom Kubala has been a pedestrian observer in Cedarburg for more than 40 years. Over the years, his understanding of the structure of the town, its changes through the year, its flora and fauna, its built realm, and the creek that runs through it has deepened. Tom’s collection of watercolor paintings in this exhibition is a glimpse of what he has observed and interpreted for the viewer with his trained eye as an architect and painter.
Little Gems, Big Impact
January 15 – May 9, 2021
Formed in 1952, the Wisconsin Watercolor Society is a juried, membership organization that exhibits its members’ artwork at various venues twice annually to promote the medium of watercolor. In this exhibition, twenty-two of its members and one prospective member are showing watercolors in a variety of naturalistic, abstracted, and non-representational styles.
The Wisconsin Watercolor Society presents this 2021 member showing of Little Gems, Big Impact with 60 paintings in a smaller format than is typical for this group. Smaller paintings also have smaller prices, so it is an opportunity for collectors and homeowners to find original art at reasonable prices. Most of the displayed paintings are available for sale during the exhibition that runs through May 9.
Faces of Wisconsin
January 15 – May 9, 2021
What do Golda Meir, Harry Houdini, Billy Mitchell, a family enduring a COVID lockdown, a Northwoods flea market scavenger, and the legendary Wisconsin hodag of folklore fame have in common? They will all be featured in this exhibition with seven area artists contributing iconic images of our Wisconsin culture. Expressions of uniquely Wisconsin faces will be shown in a variety of media by Lori Beringer, Patrick Doughman, Sasha Kinens, Rosy Petri, Vicki Reed, Janet Roberts, and Doug Witz.
Artistic Paths of Theodore Czebotar
November 5, 2020 – January 17, 2021
Gifts from the Theodore Czebotar Collection, LLC and the Kohler Foundation, Inc. have provided the artworks in this exhibition to be part of the Cedarburg Art Museum’s permanent collection. The Museum chose pieces by Theodore Czebotar (1915-1996) that are predominantly from the late 1930s and the 1940s. The artist’s Midwest surroundings, his family, and his peripatetic travels by rail to the West formed his earliest subjects. Later by the 1940s, modernist landscapes from his reclusive Hudson Valley home near Fishkill, NY became recurring subjects for Czebotar.
It is likely that many of these earlier works are being shown publicly for the first time, as they were among the multitude of unframed works found in the artist’s home and studio at the time of his death in 1996. Gift from the Theodore Czebotar Collection, LLC and the Kohler Foundation, Inc.
Masters as Muses
In Cedarburg Art Museum’s seventh annual juried exhibition, 65 artworks were selected from 116 entries of 75 artists in 12 states by juror Annemarie Sawkins. “Masters as Muses” reveals the astute choices of 58 artists for the guiding principles of their muses. From an ancient Greek Zeus sculpture to Rembrandt to Monet, Modernists, Warhol, and contemporary muses, artists reveal where their inspirations are derived.
Artists in Masters as Muses exhibition: Ellen Anderson, Michael Anderson, Nancee Ariagno, Chris Behrs, Jan Boelte, Paul Burmeister, Norhan Chamo, David D’Ostilio, Patrick Doughman, Audrey Dulmes, Pam Eader, Tom Ferguson, Ana Gadish-Linares, Kristin Gjerdset, Ronald Gonzalez, Marcia Gorra-Patek, Robert Grassel, Susan Hale, Cindy Hansen, Alexa Hollywood, Martin Keey, May Klisch, Jack Kloppenburg, Stephanie Krellwitz, Denise Laurin, John Lockwood, Terri Lockwood, Mary Ulm Mayhew, Mary Mendla, George Miller, Joseph Miller, William Millonig, Mary Ellen Mueller, Judith Murphy, Julie Nielsen, David Orndorf, Vered Shamir Pasternak, Diane Pepe, Brenda Peterson, Anne M. Raskopf, J. Reiland, Lynn Rix, Seth Robbins, Dee Roembke, Lynne Ruehl, Pamela Ruschman, Tom Smith, Jerry Steingraeber, Jeff Stern, Troy Tatlock, Barbara Vater, Barb Wagner, Kathryn Wedge, Mark Weller, Bunnie Werth, Jim Whaley, David Williams.
Quarantine Notebooks - Digital Notebooks
As a response to this global crisis, the Cedarburg Art Museum has assembled a digital, online exhibition of local experiences in the form of collaborative, crowdsourced work.
Cedarburg’ s Historic Mills
May 8 through October 31, 2020
Remembering Cedarburg’s Historic Mills is an exhibition celebrating the culmination of Cedarburg Art Museum’s 18-month Historic Mill Project. A local benefactor provided a special gift to commission five artists to create artworks for its permanent collection to represent the Cedarburg mills that spurred the community’s 19th Century industrial growth. The Historic Mill Project supported local artists while commemorating the 1853 Concordia Mill, the 1855 Hilgen-Schroeder Mill, the 1864 Hilgen-Wittenberg Woolen Mill, the 1871 wind-powered grist mill, and the 1871 Excelsior Mill that by 1890 became known as the Nail Factory.
In October 2018, a Call for Art was announced, and Wisconsin artists responded with images of their sketches of architectural subjects or the local mills. A Museum subcommittee helped to determine five artists to create artworks of the five mills. Bruce Hustad, Tom Kubala, Lynne Ruehl, Benjamin Sloma, and William A. Suys, Jr. were awarded the commissions to produce their artworks in 2019.
This exhibition is the first public showing of the finished, commissioned artworks in the Historic Mill Project. An earlier artwork in the museum’s collection, a 1976 watercolor by Harold E. Hansen of the 1845 Columbia Mill, also helps to provide the full picture of Cedarburg’s rich, industrial heritage built mostly upon the waterpower of the Cedar Creek.
Earth & Water: Sculpture by Teresa Lind
June 10, 2020 – October 11, 2020
The convergence of femininity and grit is explored through the Cedarburg Art Museum’s summer 2020 sculpture series. Metalsmith Teresa Lind transforms her feminine figures into earth and water goddesses, not only representing these elements, but humanity’s stewardship of them. Open and free to the public, viewers are invited to wonder through the museum’s outdoor sculpture garden to experience the debut of Lind’s new sculpture series,“Earth and Water”.
At the root of Lind’s oeuvre is inspiration found from the strong women who surround her including her students at UW-Whitewater. Her sledge hammer wielding female students exemplify the balance between being feminine and powerful through gritty manual labor. Lind materializes this theme by shaping feminine forms with iron, aluminum and cement. Beyond her comment on femininity, she transfigures her female forms to earth and water goddesses for this series. Lind hopes her work will encourage the viewer to ponder not only what it means to be female, but consider what our responsibilities are as humans to the earth and water.
Steve Puttrich: Beauty of Life at All Stages
May 20, 2020 – September 27, 2020
For Steve Puttrich, flowers are a metaphor for life. Beauty is found in every stage and through Puttrich’s paintings, we can experience flowers in all their stages of grace.
Eye of the Beholder African Americans Collecting Art
May 20, 2020 – September 27, 2020
Guest curated by Evelyn Patricia Terry.
This exhibition shares the artwork from private collections of 22 select collectors from Milwaukee and surrounding southeastern Wisconsin. With a passionate unique pursuit, the exhibition features a diversity inherent to each collector’s individual tastes.
Whimsical Houses of Ron Corlyn
October 2, 2019 – January 12, 2020
In “The Whimsical Houses of Ron Corlyn,” over a dozen illustrations and three 3-D models of the towering and teetering houses that grew from Corlyn’s imagination are on display. In his early career as a visual artist, Corlyn drew perfectly ordinary Victorian houses until the mid-1970s when he ventured into the realm of his imagination and started drawing “ridiculous pictures of ridiculous houses.” These houses that he deemed architectural jokes are exhibited beside matching 3-D models that borrow skills from his earlier hobby of model railroading.
Ron Corlyn is a Milwaukee native and award-winning artist-photographer-author with an impressive background in the arts. He leapt into the world of sculpture and painting while studying at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee and then at the University of Wisconsin where he graduated in 1955. Throughout his career, Corlyn worked as a professional photographer and has self-published various children’s books. Complimenting his artwork, one of Corlyn’s children’s books, “The House That Grew,” will be available for purchase throughout the duration of the exhibition.
“The Whimsical Houses of Ron Corlyn” is generously supported by Ansay & Associates.
Night Owls
October 2, 2019 – January 12, 2020
Juried Show
A team of three jurors with professional and varied art backgrounds evaluated 100 digital artwork entries from eight states for Cedarburg Art Museum’s sixth annual juried exhibition. Sixty-eight works of 53 artists from five states were juried into the nocturnal-themed exhibition, “Night Owls.” The public is invited to attend the opening reception with artist awards on Saturday, October 5, 3:00 – 5:00pm. Festivals of Cedarburg, Inc. provided a grant of financial support for “Night Owls.“
In “Night Owls,” artists interpret the nocturnal theme with great variety, creating a bounty of nighttime artworks with human, animal, landscape, and astronomical themes. The exhibition features pencil drawing, photography, fiber art, sculpture in bronze and polymer clay, mixed media, and painting in oil, pastel, watercolor, and acrylic. Commonplace subjects take on a new perspective in the darkest hours. Some artists render mysterious or spooky interpretations while whimsy prevails for others. Numerous artists relish the muted colors of moonlight or highlight stark street lamp lighting, while still others reveal an active nightlife for humans and animals alike.
Cedarburg Plein Air: Then and Now Selections from the Cedarburg Art Museum Collection
June 19 – September 15, 2019
Selected artwork from the Cedarburg Art Museum Collection demonstrates how Cedarburg has been a haven for artists painting outdoors, or en plein air, for many years. This small exhibition shows outdoor paintings from a unique summer in 1927 Cedarburg, and then special, award-winning contemporary plein air artworks from some 90 years later.
For the Love of Cedarburg & John W. Koenig Collection Overview
MAY 15 – SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
In a city with a culture for historic preservation, John Koenig celebrates his adopted hometown of Cedarburg by annually purchasing several artworks at the Cedarburg Plein Air Event in June. After his 2003 start for collecting art of Cedarburg, Koenig’s collection of plein air paintings has grown to also include paintings that are historic re-creations of earlier times in the city. More than 35 selected, original artworks demonstrate Koenig’s love of Cedarburg, past and present.
This exhibition was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tim Fonk: Forms & Feathers
July 11 – September 29, 2019
Tim Fonk (b. 1945) makes art “because not making art would be worse.” He attended Layton School of Art from 1964 to 1968 where he focused on metal sculpture by means of lost wax casting and welding. In his mid-forties his career as a commercial welder superseded his artistic practice until he retired in 2008. He has been represented by DeLind Gallery in Milwaukee and through Linda Sanduski.
Informed by shape and line, this solo exhibition displays wall masks and a selection of avian studies on paper alongside the wood and steel sculptures they inspired.
Fonk is partially color blind in discerning browns and greens and seeing variations in values. He relies on his wife to verify colors and understand how others would see the colors in his works. He uses pencil, colored pencil, watercolor, and acrylic on paper to design his sculptural works. To achieve the vibrant, crisp colors on his sculptures, Fonk uses Montana brand graffiti spray paint from Germany, applying it only outdoors, in the wind, with a fan blowing, while wearing a respirator.
This exhibition was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Peter Kudlata: Abstract Inspirations
May 15 – September 29, 2019
Peter Kudlata finds great influence in the natural world: balancing color, texture, pattern, and lines repeatedly through both his landscape designs and paintings. His large works celebrate aesthetic, physical, and emotional qualities of abstract art, encouraging continually changing interpretations by his viewers. Abstract Inspirations exhibits Kudlata’s “emotional landscapes” that embrace the physicality and emotional release of abstract painting.
This exhibition was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Collage!
January 16 – May 12, 2019
Collage! explores mixed media art by four Wisconsin artists that make their own creative statements by piecing together a variety of elements. Megan Woodard Johnson integrates portions of vintage ephemera in her increasingly non-objective paintings. Sharon Kerry-Harlan uses a discharge dye process in fabrics to make unique statements in cloth, sometimes fusing dyed fabric and paper with stitchery, other times making large, pieced quilts or painted, abstracted portraits on fabric. The mixed media art of Sandra Pape incorporates printed vintage cutouts with painted, figurative scenes, often with whimsical results. Della Wells incorporates a difficult personal history into her story-telling collages that often speak of African American female empowerment.
Collage! Programs and events included opening & closing receptions with talks by the artists, a Sip & Collage Workshop with Megan Woodard Johnson, Sip & Make Shoe Dolls with Della Wells, a panel discussion with the artists, and collage & shoe doll workshops for youth.
This exhibition made possible through the generous support of the Gerda A. Debelak Fund at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.
In Light We Trust: Pinhole Photography: Martin Morante, Hal Rammel, and Vicki Reed
February 25 – May 31, 2015
The Pinhole Photography exhibition of Morante, Rammel, and Reed was augmented by a collection of their own self-made pinhole cameras devised from such unlikely devices as an Altoid tin, a paint can, or a tea canister. Their showcase of photographic prints from lensless cameras is a reminder to viewers that before digital cameras and smart phones, simple photography started with light, film, and darkroom processing.
F. Martin Morante: Born in Uruguay, and currently living in Random Lake, WI, F. Martin Morante has studied graphic arts and photography in Uruguay and at MIAD in Milwaukee. Morante was selected as finalist for the 2011 & 2014 Wisconsin Biennial of Arts. Recently several of his pinhole photographs were selected by the Edward Hopper House Art Center in Nyack, NY for their annual show “Small Matters of Great Importance.”
Morante is greatly intrigued by the experimentation and sense of discovery inherent in alternative photography processes and is constantly working to understand its most important element: light. Photographs from his personal body of work are in the permanent collection of UNILAT of Paris (France) and Fotoclub Uruguayo (Uruguayan School of Photography).
Hal Rammel: Town of Cedarburg artist Hal Rammel has been experimenting with various alternative photographic processes for many years, an interest that took him to exploring pinhole photography in the mid 1990s. With longtime experience in designing and building unique musical instruments since the mid 1970s, the idea of building his own cameras and experimenting with photography from the ground up had great appeal.
Rammel states that “The difficulties and obstacles to obtaining satisfying images with pinhole cameras are in fact one of the things I most love about the process. I learn new things about looking at the world, about seeing light and form and about our experience of the passage of time in ways that would never had occurred to me in any other activity.”
Vicki Reed: Cedarburg photographic artist Vicki Reed started her career in photography working for a newspaper in central Illinois. The job of photographing breaking news stories could be hectic and stressful. She found that the quietness in nature to be an antidote to stress and busyness. Reed explains, “I gravitate toward simplicity and quiet moments. … That’s what I try to capture, no matter what it is—water, landscapes, people. I always try to capture quiet moments.”
Historic Cedarburg: Then and Now 2018 Juried Exhibition
October 3 – December 23, 2018
Historic Cedarburg: Then and now commemorates aspects of our city’s well-preserved past that find meaningful, new uses in the 21st century. Mills, homes, and other historic landmarks are not relics but buildings repurposed with new uses in Cedarburg. Three jurors independently scored artist submissions resulting in this competitive exhibition of 31 works.
Many of the artworks in the “Historic Cedarburg” exhibition illustrate historic buildings and places that still serve the community in re-purposed ways. However, one building that continues in its original use is illustrated in a mixed media work by Julianne Hunter, “If These Walls Could Talk.” The Mequon artist imagines all the conversations that have taken place since 1886 in the iconic barber shop on Washington Avenue. The artist’s text illustrates conversations of mundane and then-current events that are well integrated with an acrylic painting that also has a three-dimensional surprise element. This artwork garnered the Best of Show award from the jurors for its originality, technical execution, and apt illustration of the exhibition theme.
West Bend artist Doug Witz’s small sculptural environment takes a building from Cedarburg’s recent past, the Cedarburg General Store Museum, and re-creates a scene from the corner of Spring Street and Washington Avenue with his miniature polymer clay figures and backdrop. His figures are life-like with their whimsical quirks. Witz’s sculptural work earned a second place award.
A watercolor with photographic qualities by Neenah artist Kathryn Wedge highlights an everyday, utilitarian object from Cedarburg’s main street. Her “City of Cedarburg” painting in muted tones recreates a detailed view of the sidewalk grates surrounding the urban tree plantings on Washington Avenue and earned a third place award.
The Paul and Philia Hayes Fund also provided three honorable mention awards, each for $50 gift certificates to Blick Art Materials. Honorable Mention designees are Patti Doughman, Cedarburg; Karla Fuller, Oconomowoc; and Jerry Steingraeber, Mequon.
Patti Doughman’s nostalgic mixed media sculptural work incorporates an antique Ritter’s Soda Beverages bottle morphing into a soda jerk presenting a carbonated beverage ice cream drink in a simplified soda shop environment. Fuller’s encaustic collage work integrates a vintage photo of a historic Cedarburg store front along with a Cedarburg postmark and more into a unified statement. Steingraeber merges a present day historical marker of Cedarburg’s interurban bridge with the historic commuter rail car crossing through the bridge by transitioning vibrant colors for present-day to ghosted tones for the historic portion.
Most all the works in “Historic Cedarburg: Then & Now” are for sale with the exhibition running through December 23.
Exhibition and awards made possible with generous support from the Paul and Philia Hayes Fund.
Artists featured in this exhibition: Nancee Ariagno, Chris Behrs, Lori Beringer, Diane Boer-Henke, Erin Callahan Blum, Patrick Doughman, Patti Doughman, Tom Ferguson, Karla Fuller, Judith Gahn Murphy, Susan Hale, Julianne Hunter, Bruce Hustad, Martin Keey, Les Leffingwell, Christine Miller, Mary Ellen Mueller, Hal Rammel, Vicki Reed, Lynn Rix, Deb Rolfs, Lynne Ruehl, Pamela Ruschman, Michelle Savas Thompson, Jenny Kyle Smith, Jerry Steingraeber, Fred Thorne, Clary Wamhoff, Kathryn Wedge, Doug Witz, Peggy Wright
From China, With Love: Hand-Colored Photographs and Letters Home
1919-21 June 6 – September 30, 2018
This collection of photographs—now owned by a relative of the artists—was created by a creative couple living and working in China. Clarence and Florence Farnham Dittmer of Antigo, Wisconsin produced the hand-colored (and captioned) photographs in this collection, and Florence wrote the letters, which accompany them. The two were married on July 12, 1918. The following year, they traveled to China after Clarence Dittmer, a sociology professor, was invited to teach at Tsing Hua College in Peking (Beijing).
While in China, Clarence used his camera to record impressions of the country, and then he and Florence carefully embellished them with color. Almost 100 years later, these hand-colored photographs have become precious relics of a time and place which no longer exists outside of unique collections like this one.
Annemarie Sawkins, Guest Curator
Process and Perspective
June 6 – August 26, 2018
Whether working with forged or welded metal interspersed with colored glass or multiple layers of intaglio inks in monoprints, Yank’s process often involves multiple perspectives to achieve varying results. From his time as a sculptor-in-residence at the Milwaukee Public Museum early in his career, Paul Yank has always had an affinity for multiplicity of cultures around the world, as can be seen in much of his work. When Yank and his family moved to Cedarburg in 1966, he started renovating an 1848 former brewery building to transform it to an artist studio and arts complex. Over the years Yank has served as mentor for and shared his studio space with many artists eager to learn printmaking in a studio space filled with equipment typically found only in universities. Paul Yank’s solo show is a tribute to his role as an arts leader and mentor for more than 50 years in Cedarburg. This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of Olsen’s Piggly Wiggly.
Wisconsin Modernists: Rebels from Regionalism
February 1 – June 3, 2018
Wisconsin Modernists: Rebels from Regionalism explores the state’s artists who were practicing modernist tendencies in their artwork from the late 1930s through the 1960s. Modernism in America was an artistic path that occurred later than the influential Post-Impressionist, Fauvist and Cubist trends in Europe, and it was later still in expressing itself in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Modernists rejected or bypassed the prevailing Regionalism trends in art to create their own unique, divergent path. Some practiced Modernism for the majority of their artistic career; for others, it was a period of experimentation amidst other paths.
Three of the artists in this exhibition were consistent Modernists over the years: Carl Holty, Lucia Stern, and Fred Berman. The number of works by each of these artists reflects that career-long, consistent path. Holty and Stern had direct paths to Modernist trends through travels, study, or living in Europe, and became disseminators of avant-garde artistic trends when they interacted with other artists or cultural leaders in the state. Berman, who exhibited his works nationally and internationally, went through various stages of abstraction, starting in the early 1950s and progressing to large, non-objective paintings in the 1960s and beyond. Many of the other artists in this exhibition were expressing Modernism with abstracted urban or geometric subjects (not the idyllic view of the Regionalists’ rural subjects), flattening the pictorial space or their figurative subjects, or manipulating color, line, and shape in their non-representational artwork.
Because of the many different paths that Modernism could take in the Midwest, this exhibition narrows its focus to artists who were painting or using mixed media to strive for abstraction or non-objective subjects in their artwork. The various stages of abstraction are shown, as artists moved from naturalistic tendencies through abstraction to works that explore color, shape, and form for their own sake.
Cedarburg Art Museum’s Wisconsin Modernists exhibition features over 25 artists and 68 artworks, mostly from private collections, that are coming together for the first time. The February 1 through June 3, 2018 exhibition time includes programs by local experts and educators for adults and children. This exhibition and its programming are generously supported by the Rita Edquist Memorial Fund and the Cedarburg Junior Women’s Club.
Frankie Johnson: Rhythm & Colors in Oils
November 8 – January 21, 2018
Easily transitioning between plein air landscape, portraits, still life, or figurative work, Frankie Johnson shows her versatility, vibrancy, and expressiveness in oil painting in this exhibition. The 2015 Cedarburg Plein Air Event Best of Show winner from Lake Zurich, Illinois demonstrates her ability to deftly handle a myriad of subjects in this solo exhibition.
Iconic Wisconsin
11/7/2017
From 156 submitted entries, 70 pieces for Iconic Wisconsin were chosen by a scoring of three jurors. Each of the exhibiting artists interprets this year’s theme of “iconic Wisconsin” in a different way. A diverse array of subjects, media, and styles make up this celebration of our state. From sculpture to photography to painting and drawing, 56 artists from all over Wisconsin, and several of its neighboring states, will display their unique expressions of what defines Wisconsin.
Frankie Johnson, the Best-of-Show winner of the 2015 Cedarburg Plein Air Event, will be featured in a solo show at the museum, which will run alongside Iconic Wisconsin.
Johnson’s exhibition, Rhythm & Color in Oils, features the artist’s versatility in her favored medium.
Kathie Wheeler: Down a Country Road
August 30 – November 5, 2017
After graduating from the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Kathie Wheeler has worked as a freelance commercial artist and as a portrait artist. Today she enjoys painting en plein air and from her studio on a small farm in southwestern Wisconsin. This exhibition showcases the 2014 Cedarburg Plein Air Event best-of-show award-winning artist with an array of her intimate, rural scenes. In the manner of the French Barbizon School, the Hudson River School, and the American Impressionists who took to the fields and woods with their sketchbooks and paints to record the beauty of their surroundings, Kathie Wheeler’s paintings capture the essence and emotive nature of her outdoor subjects.
Joseph Friebert: Through the Years, 1945-2000
August 30 – November 5, 2017
More than five decades of artwork of Milwaukee artist Joseph Friebert (1908-2002) are represented in this succinct exhibition. Nine paintings and two lithographs embody various stages in the prominent American artist’s career. From a representational landscape and depiction of refugees in flight in the 1940s through abstractions in the 1950s to lyrical landscapes and figurative works of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, this American artist showed diversity of subject amidst a limited palette of rich, earthy tones. All works were gifts to the Cedarburg Art Museum from the Joseph and Betsy Ritz Friebert Family Partnership and Kohler Foundation, Inc.
Michael Santini An Allegorical Journey
AUG. 29, 2017
A trinity of new exhibitions opens at the Cedarburg Art Museum on Thursday, Aug. 31.
“Michael Santini: Allegorical Journey” collects drawings, paintings and sculptures by the Mequon-based artist. Santini has embraced the label used by late Milwaukee Journal art critic James Auer to describe his style: “modern medievalist.” The artist’s canvasses are indeed touched by the fantastic and the frightening in a manner that recalls Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. But the 21st century has also left its indelible mark on his style. Santini’s mises-en-scène show the influence of Surrealism: His Boschian inventions are situated in the sort of placeless landscapes favored by Salvador Dali. The effect, as Auer would have it, is at once charmingly antiquated and surprisingly contemporary.
“Joseph Friebert: Through the Years, 1945-2000” is a brief yet potent exhibition of nine paintings and two lithographs by the departed Milwaukee artist (1908-2002), which were gifted to the museum by the Joseph and Betsy Ritz Friebert Family Partnership and Kohler Foundation, Inc. The paintings find Friebert in different modes, from his representational and social realist paintings of the 1940s to his 1950s abstractions and through his landscapes and figurative works of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
