The Chazen Museum of Art is an
art museum located at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison in
Madison, Wisconsin. The Chazen Museum of Art is accredited by the
American Alliance of Museums.
History
Until 2005, the Museum was known regularly as the Elvehjem Museum of Art, named after
Conrad Elvehjem, the 13th president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an internationally known
biochemist
Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...
in
nutrition.
In May 2005, the museum was renamed the Chazen Museum of Art after a $20 million building-expansion donation from alumni Simona and Jerome A. Chazen, the latter being a founder of Liz Claiborne Inc. (now known as
Kate Spade & Company
Kate Spade & Company, initially known as Liz Claiborne Inc. (founded in 1976 in Manhattan), and then as Fifth & Pacific Companies, Inc. (from 2012 to 2014), is a fashion company that designs and markets a range of women's and men's apparel, acces ...
).
The original museum building, which opened in 1970, retains the Elvehjem name.
In 2015, the Chazens again made a substantial donation to the museum that included $5 million dedicated to the museum building, $3 million to endow chairs in art and art history at the University of Wisconsin, and 30 works of art valued at $20 million.
After three decades as the museum's director, Russell Panczenko stepped down in 2017 and was replaced by new director Amy Gilman who is still working today.
In 2018, the Association of Art Museum Directors announced a pilot program that would provide paid internships to minority undergraduate students wanting to work in the arts, with the Chazen Museum of Art being one of the inaugural participants in the program.
In 2019, the museum hosted a photo exhibit entitled ''Southern Rites'' by photographer, filmmaker and University of Wisconsin alumnus
Gillian Laub.
An exhibit featuring the sculpture of
Petah Coyne
Petah Coyne (born 1953) is a contemporary American sculptor and photographer best known for her large and small scale hanging sculptures and floor installations. Working in innovative and disparate materials, her media has ranged from the organi ...
was also on display at the museum in 2021.
Collections
European artists represented in the museum include
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...
,
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
,
Salvador Dalí,
Barnaba da Modena,
Barbara Hepworth
Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leadi ...
,
Jean Dufy,
Andrea Vanni
Andrea Vanni (1332 – c. 1414) was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance, active mainly in his native Siena.
Biography
Vanni was born in about 1332 in Siena. The first notice of him as a painter comes from 1353 when he was associated with ...
,
Giorgio Vasari,
René Magritte,
Maurice Utrillo,
Hubert Robert,
Thomas Gainsborough,
Albert Gleizes,
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...
,
Benjamin Williams Leader,
Eugène Boudin, and
Maximilien Luce
Maximilien Luce (13 March 1858 – 6 February 1941) was a prolific French Neo-impressionist artist, known for his paintings, illustrations, engravings, and graphic art, and also for his anarchist activism. Starting as an engraver, he then ...
. The museum's collection of American artists includes
Mark Rothko,
Andy Warhol,
Grandma Moses, many of
Alexander Calder's works in several forms, and a copy of the
Emancipation Memorial. Contemporary works by
Shusaku Arakawa
was a Japanese conceptual artist and architect. He had a personal and artistic partnership with the writer and artist Madeline Gins that spanned more than four decades in which they collaborated on a diverse range of visual mediums, including: pa ...
,
David Klamen
David Klamen (born 1961) is an American artist and academic. He is known for visually diverse paintings that meld technical mastery with postmodern explorations of the processes by which humans understand and interpret experience.Hixson, Kathryn. ...
,
Karen LaMonte, a collection of regionalist paintings by
John Steuart Curry, Russian Social Realist paintings by Georgy Ionin and Klavdy Vasiliyevich Lebedev, glass art by
René Lalique, and a representation of
Japanese woodblock prints
Woodblock printing in Japan (, ''mokuhanga'') is a technique best known for its use in the ''ukiyo-e'' artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for printing books in the same period. Widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (160 ...
are also exhibited. The Van Vleck collection of Japanese woodblock prints remains a large portion of the museum's collection of works on paper.
Chamber concerts known as ''Sunday Afternoon Live from the Chazen'' (formerly ''Live at the Elvehjem'') were broadcast from the museum by
Wisconsin Public Radio until 2015 when WPR discontinued the program. The concert series continues on a monthly schedule as a live show with a
webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web ...
.
The Chazen Museum of Art is the official repository of Tandem Press, Madison, Wisconsin, a fine arts publisher. It archives one print from every edition that is published.
References
External links
*
*
Sunday Afternoon from the Chazen'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chazen Museum Of Art
University museums in Wisconsin
Art museums and galleries in Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Museums in Madison, Wisconsin
Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums
National Register of Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin
Historic district contributing properties in Wisconsin
University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin
1969 establishments in Wisconsin
Art museums established in 1969