Hard Times and Handicrafts with Jackie Schweitzer

 

During the height of the Great Depression an innovative Works Progress Administration project in Milwaukee gained national attention for its original designs. Between 1935 and 1942 the Milwaukee Handicraft Project hired thousands of workers to produce textiles, furniture, toys and books. This lecture will feature period images of the workers and products from this project and provide context of WPA projects in Milwaukee at that time.

About the Exhibition: WAM’s exhibition is the first comprehensive retrospective of her work. It begins with black-and-white images made for the 1929 Riverside High School yearbook. The exhibition includes early social realism for the Work Progress Administration (WPA), textile designs, and numerous still lifes. Most of the exhibition features Grotenrath’s invention of a unique, personal art, for which she is known and remembered.

Open Now – March 31, 2023

About WAM: The Warehouse Art Museum (WAM) is located at 1635 W. St. Paul Ave, Milwaukee. Exhibitions, performances, and lectures are based on The Warehouse Art Museum’s permanent collection of over 7,300 modern and contemporary works on paper, paintings, photography and sculpture. The collection is available for scholars, students and art enthusiasts, and works are available for institutional loans. For more information, please visit wammke.org or call 414-252-0677.
Admission to WAM is always free. Masks are required.