Highlights Archives
Discover the "Framed! Investigation" Online
Even though the gallery exhibition has come down, all of the intriguing stories from Framed! Investigating the Painted Past are now available online. Explore the stories behind the faces, places, and events depicted in 16 oil paintings from the Wisconsin Historical Society. Discover clues to Wisconsin’s past by using the colorful and informative pages accompanying each painting as your guide.
For history lovers, paintings provide clues about the activities, attitudes, ideas, and interests of the people who made and acquired them. The Historical Society recognized the importance of visual works of art as documents of history and began to commission and collect paintings in 1854. Framed! marked the 150th anniversary of the Society’s painting collection. Today, the Society maintains a significant painting collection of more than 400 works that is rich with historical evidence. The online exhibition examines what kinds of evidence paintings offer, how we make sense of the information they provide, and how we frame them within their historical contexts.
Investigating the stories behind each painting was a laborious endeavor spanning the depth and breadth of the Society’s resources. The Museum’s accession and research files provided the base line of information for each painting. Archival collections supplied original documents pertinent to many paintings such as an artist’s account book, letters from the wife of an Apostle Island’s missionary, and the handwritten memoirs of a Wisconsin pioneer. Supporting images from the Visual Materials Archives were gathered from photographs, stereocards, and negatives with the gracious help of Archives and Publications staff. Library collections yielded books, pamphlets, and microfilms providing much needed corroborating information and additional images. Framed! also incorporates Museum objects to bolster the interpretation. Two such artifacts are actually depicted in exhibition paintings; visitors can view an Erard harp that belonged to Wisconsin-born sculptor Vinnie Ream and the finger-woven leg garters once worn by Stockbridge Sachem Austin Quinney.
The paintings are one of the most often researched collections of the Museum. For more than two years, Museum staff, with assistance from student interns, has been amassing painting images and information relating to subjects and artists represented in the collection, and the information is available online at www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/collections/online. This initiative continues the Museum’s efforts to develop new modes of access to its collections.
:: Posted September 7, 2004
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