Haggerty Museum of Art presents


Recent Gifts to the Haggerty from the Allen and Vicki Samson Collection
January 20 - March 27, 2005

(MILWAUKEE) The Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University will present Recent Gifts to the Haggerty from the Allen and Vicki Samson Collection January 20 through March 27, 2005. The exhibition includes works donated to the Haggerty in 2004. The exhibition will open with an informal discussion with the donors of the artwork and prominent Milwaukee art collectors Allen and Vicki Samson on March 10th at 5 p.m. in the Museum. A reception will follow.

The exhibition consists of contemporary sculpture, works on paper, mixed media and paintings by American artists Joseph Raffael, Carolyn Brady, Viola Frey, Alicia Czechowski, Lester Johnson, Leonard Baskin, C.J. Yao, Warren Brandt, Tim Rollins, and Kids of Survival (K.O.S.). Works by Scottish artist Ken Currie, German artist Georg Baselitz and British artist Charles Martin will also be shown. The exhibition includes the bronze sculpture Seated Male Figure by Leonard Baskin (1922-2000), the first of an edition of 15 created by Bedi-Rassy Foundry in New York.

American artist and teacher Tim Rollins (b. 1955) began working with troubled teens from the South Bronx in the early '80s. The group, named Kids of Survival (K.O.S.), incorporated text including pages from Franz Kafka's America, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, George Orwell's Animal Farm, and The Autobiography of Malcom X into their work. The Second Study for Amerika - The Stoker, South Bronx, 1992 a mixed media canvas, is featured in the exhibition.

Lester Johnson helped enlarge the scope of Abstract Expressionism. He painted figures in striking color, and engaged in strenuous gestures. His figurative paintings provided a link between Abstract Expressionism and Neo-Expressionism of the 1980s. Leonard Baskin sculpted human subjects in wood, clay, bronze and stone in an archaic style. His themes include ancient Greece, the Bible and modern Western poetry.

George Baselitz spent his career working against the mainstream as a painter, printmaker and sculptor. His early work included imagery tied to the body, organs and trauma. In 1969, Baselitz began painting his subjects upside down and concentrated on the medium itself more than the subject matter. He became professor of painting at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe in 1977 and at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste in West Berlin in 1983. After 1980, Baselitz began moving away from his focus on the medium and began to focus more on the subject matter of his work.

The Haggerty Museum of Art is located at North 13th St. and West Clybourn Avenue on the campus of Marquette University. Museum hours are Monday - Wednesday, Friday - Saturday, 10 am-4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 am-8 p.m.; and Sunday, noon-5 p.m.. Free parking is available in the Mary B. Finnigan Parking Lot (enter on 11th St. through Marquette Lot J). For more information on the Haggerty Museum call (414) 288-1669.