Grohmann Museum

The Spirit of Milwaukee

September's highlights include railroad and religious art, work by Reginald Baylor and much more.

Downtown Employee Appreciation Week returns August 19

Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21 will host five days of free lunches, Office Challenge Games, giveaways and more

Museum Days Returns to Milwaukee

Experience world-class cultural institutions at discounted prices Jan. 18-28 in the Greater Milwaukee area

13 Ways to Celebrate MLK Day

Speeches, performances, movies celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. planned across town.

Lost Arts at the Grohmann Museum

A Celebration of Our Working Past

Museum Days Returns for 2023

With special exhibits and free and reduced admission at 27 metro area museums.

First Ever PridetoberFest

Plus, a Lakefront Brewery release party, a Harvest Festival, the Get Down turns 18, a exhibition of lost trades and an opera at the performing arts center.

Inside The Redevelopment of Viets Tower

MSOE is transforming its oldest residence hall, adding a 13-story addition.

The Hop celebrating the spirit of the season with new ‘Holidays with The Hop’ station decoration initiative

Viets Tower’s Rise

MSOE redeveloping 1960s residence hall into modern complex accessible to all students.

Free Virtual Charlie Berens Comedy Show

Museum exhibitions and Milwaukee Startup Week have a lot to offer.

Milwaukee Arts and Culture Going Virtual

Google has added a number of Milwaukee institutions to its Arts & Culture page.

Steel: The Cycle of Industry extended through June 5 at the Grohmann Museum

Steel places the viewer at the point where shovel meets dirt in the mining process and ends in the same soil surrounding these long-abandoned steel mills.

Summer Gallery Night and Day to be held July 22 and 23, 2016

An evening of gallery hopping and art viewing begins Friday, July 22 and continues during the day on Saturday, July 23.

January Highlights at the Milwaukee Art Museum

Last chance to see acclaimed photography exhibition Larry Sultan: Here and Home, and first glimpse of Wisconsin's most talented young artists

Trainfest Brings Train Fans of All Ages to Milwaukee Nov 14-15

Trainfest is a weekend full of family fun and an opportunity for young and old to immerse themselves in the world of model trains.

Downtown’s summer trolley bells will toll again beginning June 4

The service will run Thursdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., June 4 through Sept. 5.

Milwaukee Public Library’s Board of Trustees Approves Entering Negotiations with Grohmann Museum to Loan ‘The Bookworm’

Museum will give $1 million to the library for rights to display the painting

Jim Brozek

Inspired by people at work, Brozek has for decades captured laborers of all kinds in his photos.

Digital Billboard Art Month Brings Ten-Day Art Exhibit to All of Milwaukee

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has issued a proclamation recognizing October 1-10 as “Digital Billboard Art Month”(DBAM).

WMSE 91.7FM Food Slam Fundraiser

Event features food tasting, silent and live auctions and WMSE swagger

IN:SITE Announces Digital Billboard Art Month

Milwaukee billboards will get a little bit more pleasing in October.

Pulled Pork and Paintings

WMSE's Food Slam offered dozens of restaurants serving tasty food at the Grohmann Museum.

WMSE’s 11th Annual “Food Slam” fundraising event on the campus of the Milwaukee School of Engineering

The 11th Annual WMSE Food Slam features 26 area restaurants, businesses, food trucks and cafés dishing out specialty entrees for up to 500 listeners and supporters.

How Urban are Marquette, MIAD, MSOE, and UWM?

Milwaukee is lucky to have a number of higher education institutions in its most urban neighborhoods.

Gould Takes Journal Buyout, Rips Grohmann Museum One More Time

Whitney Gould took an early retirement buyout from Journal Communications a little over a month ago.  Her send off column was titled “Retiring, not tiring of quality design.” Ever since moving to Milwaukee three years ago I’ve enjoyed her reporting on issues involving building design. My views began to disagree with hers when she started to question the restoration of the former check processing center on the corner of Broadway and State St into the Grohmann Museum, a museum dedicated to the showcasing of men (and women) at work throughout time, at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). I began to wonder if she cared that the new Grohmann Museum would finally build a book-end for the MSOE campus with the Kern Center, rehab an underused and unattractive building downtown, and build a transition piece from Milwaukee City Hall north to the Kern Center and Park East neighborhood.  Add to that the fact that the financing was entirely provided by Eckhart Grohmann.  In fact Robert & Patricia Kern and Eckhart Grohmann deserve nothing but admiration and applause for their commitment to producing well-rounded engineers in downtown Milwaukee. To be fair, Whitney Gould does address some of the these facts and does give a fair amount of praise to Grohmann for his contribution.  I do disagree with her on a few things though. Her appraisal of the building as a cheap impersonation of the style of a bygone era is lacking in insight.  One needs to only walk from City Hall, past the Grohmann Museum, and to the Kern Center to see the bridge the museum forms between the past and present architectural styles.  Unlike many other bland glass buildings in many other cities, Grohmann and the architects at Uihlein Wilson created something distinctly Milwaukee and distinctly MSOE.   The building meshes perfectly with the Kern Center both inside and out thanks to Uihlein Wilson designing both buildings, and forms a southern book end of the MSOE campus on Broadway to match the Kern Center’s north anchor position.  MSOE should be praised for finally developing a physical identity, especially while both Marquette and UWM expand theirs in a much more public fashion. She, along with other members of the art community, also seem to take offense that no one that works at the museum has true art credentials.  Speaking as someone who has been in the museum many times, the artwork is displayed just as it in any museum and curator John Kopmeier is just as qualified to discuss the content of the collection as anyone with an art degree. My final point of disagreement with Gould is over her obsession with the Nazi art work in the collection.  She seems to hold this belief that the Nazi-attachment to the artwork is hidden from viewers, it’s not.  It is not outwardly stated that “hey, this painting could contain Nazi slaves”, but if you ask someone they will tell you.  They will also tell you that the paintings featuring Egyptians might contain slaves […]

Free Public Showing

Rooftop figure Originally uploaded by johndecember MSOE’s new Grohmann Museum will be open to the public for free on Saturday, December 1st from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. I had class in the building all last trimester (there are a couple classrooms in the building), and would recommend you stop in to check it out if you’re in the area. It has a wonderful roof-top sculpture garden, which you’ll be able to get on weather-permitting and take a couple pretty pictures. On the note of the building itself, it’s a wonderful addition to Milwaukee. It’s a renovation of a previously underused and fairly ugly building, and for the first time creates an entry and exit point for the MSOE campus with the Kern Center. Admission is available any other day of the week for $5.