galleries - february 2012

VISIT THE HARLEY-DAVIDSON MUSEUM, featuring Watercolors by Willie G., an exhibition of Willie G. Davidson’s idyllic rural scapes and still life watercolors paintings. Images like the two here hint at the time he spent riding through the countryside during his 48 years as a pacesetter in motorcycle design.

At the GROHMANN MUSEUM, 1000 N. Broadway, the legacy of work in Milwaukee is explored through documentary photos and site histories of former and current industrial facilities. The Death and (After) Life of Post-Industrial Milwaukee is the intriguing title of the Grohmann exhibition which looks at emerging industries that will provide jobs in the years ahead.

KATIE GINGRASS GALLERY, 241 N. Broadway in the Historic Third Ward, showcases its annual Vintage Poster Show through March. Find a wide variety of American and European advertising posters from the 1880s through the 1980s.

In the East Town area, the Celebration of Plein Air and Other Winter Artworks is on display at DELIND GALLERY OF FINE ART, 450 E. Mason St. “For this show, we’ve asked a few dozen artists to ‘surprise us’ with what winter in Wisconsin means to them,” says gallery owner Bill DeLind. The exhibition continues through Feb. 11.

Also in the Historic Third Ward, the TORY FOLLIARD GALLERY, 233 N. Milwaukee, will feature two exhibitions Feb. 11-March 10. Works by Charles Munch, an artist who has long painted the complicated relationship between man and nature , are showcased in “Playing with Fire.” Glass artists Stephanie Trenchard and Jeremy Popelka display “New Work 2012.” Trenchard casts and paints objects to form a narrative within her work. Popelka focuses on reliquary architectural forms that refer to rural farming communities. Historical and biographical, their sculpture is a result of introspective gazing at the imagery which influences them.