Haggerty Museum of Art

Haggerty Museum of Art
Name	Haggerty Museum of Art
Established	1984
Location	Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Type	University art museum

Haggerty Museum of Art is the art museum affiliated with Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, serving as a university, regional, and national exhibition venue. The museum collects, preserves, interprets, and exhibits works spanning European painting, American art, contemporary sculpture, African art, and photography, and collaborates with museums, galleries, and cultural institutions to present rotating exhibitions and educational programs.

History

The museum opened amid institutional initiatives at Marquette University and civic arts developments in Milwaukee during the 1980s, following precedents set by university museums such as the Harvard Art Museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Yale University Art Gallery. Its founding involved donors and trustees influenced by figures associated with the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Charles Allis Art Museum, and the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. Early curatorial strategies engaged with scholarship from curators and historians connected to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian Institution, reflecting broader trends exemplified by exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. Over subsequent decades, the museum hosted traveling shows organized with institutions such as the Walker Art Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. Directors and curators have held affiliations with schools and programs like the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Columbia University Department of Art History, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Pratt Institute. Major exhibitions have included loans and collaborations involving collections from the National Gallery of Art, the Tate Modern, the Rijksmuseum, and the National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom).

Architecture and Facilities

The museum’s building and gallery design respond to practical and pedagogical models used by institutions such as the Kimbell Art Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection. The facility incorporates climate control, security systems, and storage solutions consistent with standards promoted by the American Alliance of Museums and professional practices modeled by the Getty Conservation Institute, the British Museum, and the Louvre. Public spaces are configured for lectures, receptions, and performances similar to venues at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Walker Art Center. The museum’s conservation and registration practices parallel those employed at the National Gallery, London, the Hermitage Museum, and the Museo Nacional del Prado.

Collections and Notable Works

The permanent collection includes European paintings that converse with holdings at the Musée d'Orsay, the Uffizi Gallery, and the Prado Museum, American paintings and prints in the lineage of collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as contemporary works that engage dialogues present at the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, and the Stedelijk Museum. Photography and media holdings reflect practices championed by the International Center of Photography, the George Eastman Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. The collection also includes African and Oceanic materials resonant with the British Museum and the Musée du quai Branly, and modernist and postwar sculptures in relation to the Henry Moore Foundation, the Storm King Art Center, and the Nasher Sculpture Center. Notable artists represented in acquisitions, loans, or exhibitions have included works by Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Roy Lichtenstein, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Salvador Dalí, Auguste Rodin, Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ai Weiwei, Yayoi Kusama, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Jacques-Louis David, Édouard Manet, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Caravaggio, Titian, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, Édouard Vuillard, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Georges Seurat, Henri Rousseau, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Marina Abramović, Tracey Emin, Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Brice Marden, Rosa Bonheur, and Mary Cassatt.

Exhibitions and Programs

The museum mounts temporary exhibitions and thematic shows that have partnered with traveling programs organized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and has hosted retrospectives and surveys in conversation with curators from the New Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Hammer Museum. Curatorial projects have featured collaborative loans from the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Denver Art Museum. Special programs include artist talks, panel discussions, and symposia with visiting scholars from the University of Chicago, the Northwestern University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Columbia University School of the Arts, and the Yale School of Art.

Education and Community Outreach

Educational initiatives engage students, faculty, and community members in partnerships with academic departments at Marquette University and with local cultural organizations such as the Milwaukee Public Museum, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. School programs coordinate with the Milwaukee Public Schools system and with statewide arts networks connected to the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Internships and curatorial practica draw on professional networks including the Association of Art Museum Curators, the College Art Association, and the Museum Education Roundtable.

Governance and Funding

Governance follows a university museum model with oversight from Marquette University leadership, advisory boards, and external trustees with affiliations to institutions such as the Greater Milwaukee Committee, the Milwaukee Arts Board, and philanthropic organizations including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and local benefactors. Funding sources include endowments, private gifts modeled after major campaigns at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, competitive grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, corporate partnerships similar to those used by the Bank of America and Target Corporation, and revenue from memberships and special events.

Category:Art museums and galleries in Wisconsin Category:Marquette University