Grohmann Museum: An Overview

View from the third floor of the Grohmann Museum atrium. In view: custom mosaic tile floor designed by German artist Hans Dieter Tylle and created by the Mayersche Hofkunstanstalt in Munich, Germany.

German artist Hans Dieter Tylle used images from existing art works to create this Roman-style mosaic tile floor as visitors walk into the Grohmann Museum's glass entryway. The mosaic draws upon images from the Man at Work collection and features five images of men and women at work. Emphasizing manual labor, Tylle chose the miner, spinner, fieldworkers, blacksmith and foundry worker to represent various aspects of the collection.

Created by Hans Dieter Tylle, the Grohmann Museum's atrium ceiling features a 700-square foot circular mural inspired by the collection's painting depicting Venus and Cupid at the Forge of Vulcan. In the mural, Tylle portrays the worlds of the gods and the inventive human spirit in juxtaposition to the manual laborers of the mosaic tile floor below.

View of the mosaic tile floor and ceiling mural which welcome visitors to the Grohmann Museum's glass entryway.

View of the stained glass installations from which adorn the dome of the Grohmann Museum. There are eight installations, each measuring 88 x 64 inches. The subjects for each stained glass were selected from the Man at Work Collection.

Pre-Industrial gallery view, which resides on the first floor of the Grohmann Museum.

Sculptures of men toiling in the field and foundry are among the most striking in the Men at Work Collection. They also serve as a striking architectural element of the Grohmann Museum through larger-than-life statues perched on the roofline of the building.

View of the Grohmann Museum as night falls on the city of Milwaukee.

The sculpture garden atop the Grohmann Museum is more than an extension of the Man at Work art collection. The roof is a Green Roof — an energy-saving and environmentally friendly alternative to a conventional rooftop. The plant and grass-covered roof keeps the building cooler in the summer, saves energy and extends the useful life of the roof. Rainwater is also trapped in the plantings, reducing the amount of storm water runoff that enters the city’s sewer system.

A dozen large, bronze sculptures – men toiling in the field and foundry, heaving hammers or pinching molten metal with hot tongs – perch on the roof line of the Grohmann Museum. These fellows, each about 9 feet tall and weighing in at a thousand pounds a piece, have a commanding view of a city that was built on the hard work they depict.

The commissioned sculptures, replicas of smaller bronzes in the collection, were fabricated in the Philippines through a process called lost-foam casting that transformed them from their original size of about 19-inches to larger-than-life scale. In addition to the 12 large-scale works, another six sculptures are displayed in the 10,000 square-foot garden’s interior. The space is perfect place for enjoying sculpture, contemplation or entertaining.

Stunning view at dusk, looking east from the rooftop garden of the Grohmann Museum.

In October 2017, the Grohmann Museum celebrated its 10th anniversary with a special black-tie gala. Featured in this photo (from L-to-R) are James Kieselburg, Museum Director and Curator, Dr. Eckhart Grohmann, Museum Founder and MSOE Regent and Dr. John Walz, MSOE President.