Trouble at Milwaukee Art Museum?

Milwaukee Art Museum. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Last week the union representing more than 100 Milwaukee Art Museum employees issued an unsparing press release blasting the leadership of the museum. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ Lodge 66, which represents most of the museum’s staff, was told that “eight positions at the museum would be cut or significantly reduced in scope and compensation” and several ‘long vacant” positions “would be permanently eliminated.”

“This newest round of layoffs has been sudden and chaotic—department managers received word of them only moments before being told that roles in their own departments would be eliminated. Leadership’s handling of this situation reflects ongoing mismanagement, terrible internal communication, and a blatant disregard for the well-being of its staff,” the statement noted.

These are only the latest staff cuts at the museum. Under the leadership of its former director Marcelle Polednik, the museum reduced its workforce from about 240 employees in 2019 to 180 in 2024, as Urban Milwaukee has reported, even as Polednik’s salary nearly tripled. Federal 990 tax forms submitted by the museum show that Polednik’s total compensation rose from $167,867 in fiscal year 2016-17 to $549,000 in 2022-23, while a new position of a deputy director was added to the museum staff at a salary of about $225,000. Under Polednik the number of top employees earning more than $100,000 doubled, from five to 10 positions.

“Meanwhile, union staff and other essential workers are consistently told that merit-based raises are not possible due to budget constraints—a justification contradicted on its face by leadership’s own compensation practices,” the union charged.

The staff “have long borne the brunt of the Museum’s supposed years long financial strain,” the statement noted. “Over the past two years, essential vacant positions have gone unfilled, critical resources have dwindled, and professional development has been curtailed and deprioritized…”

“It’s clear that none of these problems have been solved, or even mitigated, by the recent, controversy-tinged departure of MAM Director Marcelle Polednik,” the union charged. “This Board of Trustees is substantially similar to the one that hired Polednik, gave her multiple raises, and eventually, seemingly compelled her resignation.”

The museum announced in May that Polednik was “resigning” from her job. Given that she is in her late 40s and was not leaving for another job, it raised speculation among museum observers that the board had asked her to leave.

“Yes, she was let go by the board,” says Fred Vogel, an art collector and philanthropist who once served on the board and has been a supporter of the museum for decades. “Her contract expired in July 2026. You are not going to walk away from more than year of compensation of more than half a million dollars.”

Vogel’s mother donated money to create the Virginia Booth Vogel acquisitions fund at the museum back in 1976 under a cooperative legal agreement that consulted with the family and got its approval for any purchase of art.

“She named me as the donor representative to succeed her,” said Fred Vogel. “We worked closely with curatorial staff. It was a very successful relationship until Polednik arrived.”

After 40 years of the fund being handled cooperatively, Vogel says Polednik made it clear he or his family would have no control whatsoever over the fund. “She sent me an email saying ‘you are not to speak to any staff at the museum and they are not to speak to you.’”

“Marcelle was an authoritarian who wanted absolute control of all decision making at the museum.”

Vogel said he complained to top board members but nothing changed.

“She browbeat or put Joel Quadracci [former museum board chair] in his place and put Jeffery Yabuki [who succeeded Quadracci as board chair] in his place. And the same with Andy Nunemaker, they all just knuckled under.”

If so, that was a remarkable display of power by Polednik. These are three of the wealthiest people in Milwaukee and Quadracci is CEO of Quadgraphics while Yabuki is the former CEO of Fiserv and current chairman & CEO of InvestCloud. Moreover, art museums typically never antagonize art collectors, as they are a major way institutions build their collections. As of publication, none of the three board members had responded to requests for comment by Urban Milwaukee.

Polednik came to Milwaukee after a job as director of the much smaller Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville. She described herself as a “convener and collaborator,” which doesn’t match descriptions of her by some MAM observers. She was also credited with growing the Jacksonville museum, increasing its attendance by more than 70% and general admission revenue by 147%.

But the Milwaukee museum declined on her watch. Her last report to the Milwaukee County Board said that since 2019 annual attendance dropped from 250,000 to 200,000, memberships from 20,000 to 16,000 and school tours from 56,000 to 28,000, as Urban Milwaukee reported. Annual earned or program service revenue did increase during her tenure, rising from about $2.1 million to $2.45 million, but the main driver of this was a nearly 59% increase in the admission fee for adults, rising from $17 in 2016 to $27 today.

The museum’s endowment did grow significantly under her, but those were years of tremendous growth for the stock market. The federal tax forms show earnings from investments now pay nearly 10.8% of museum expenses, up from 7.8% when she took over. That is a significant gain though it still leaves Milwaukee behind the average art museum in earnings from investments, which was 22% as of 2020.

In short, this is a museum whose budget has been flat for the last decade while its attendance and memberships have declined. The board’s next choice for the director position could not be more important, and “if history is precedent it will do so without meaningful communication, much less cooperation, with the very workers who keep the Museum running,” the union warns. “That is no longer acceptable… We call on the Museum to prioritize transparency, equity, and accountability in all staffing and financial decisions.”

From a very different vantage point, Vogel echoes that call for transparency. “The board is not responsive to the community,” he charges. The full board of directors, some 30 people, “has almost no voice.” It’s the small group on the executive committee “that really decides things,” he says.

“And yet with all their power they couldn’t deal with Marcelle.”