The Guido Brink Collection at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD)

by Cecelia Loeschmann, UW-Milwaukee SOIS

This summer, as part of the Recollection Wisconsin Digitization Initiative, I had the honor of working with the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) to begin digitizing and describing the Guido Brink collection. Guido Brink holds a special place in MIAD’s history as one of the founding members and the first President of the Milwaukee School of Art, which evolved into the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. 

The Guido Brink collection spans a wide array of materials: from records like resumes, letterheads, exhibition advertisements, and newspapers, to ephemera like photographs, artworks, and jewellery. I first worked with Steven Anderson, Exhibitions & Collections Manager at MIAD, to inventory and organize materials for digitization. Once materials were selected, I digitized and created metadata for them, then I uploaded them into Artwork Archive for institutional use. Later, the same materials were uploaded into ContentDM, where folks across the globe will be able to view a selection of the Guido Brink collection publicly on the Recollection Wisconsin website.

Prior to this fieldwork assignment, I only knew Guido Brink from one of his public sculptures, the Happy-Go-Luckies of Nature and Technology, located near Lapham Hall on the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee campus. I came to learn more about Brink piece by piece, working in his archive. 

Through photographs, letters to fellow artists, interviews, articles, and more. I learned about his early years in Germany, his journey to America, his return to Germany, and time spent in the German Army after being drafted, and his move back to the United States from Germany with his wife Elisabeth “Ello”. The two settled in Milwaukee, where Guido initially worked for Conrad Schmitt Studios, and later became a faculty member at the Layton School of Art, while Ello worked as an architectural critic for The Milwaukee Journal. 

Though Guido was traditionally trained as a painter, he studied welding and metal fabrication at the Milwaukee Area Technical College and spent more than two decades as an artist in residence at Super Steel Products Corporation, creating sculptural works. The Happy-Go-Luckies of Nature and Technology is only one of many public works he created. 

Here’s a not so happy-go-lucky review of the Happy-Go-Luckies of Nature and Technology, published in Milwaukee Magazine in January 1993.

Many such sculptures, like Jubilation on the UW–Whitewater Campus, Man and Technology on the Waukesha County Technical College campus, and Symbol Totem in Waupun, were funded through Wisconsin’s Percent for Art Program. The now-discontinued program was created in 1980 with “the purpose of placing artwork in public settings, helping to beautify public buildings and urban environments, and to draw attention to the wealth of artistic expertise within our region.” Other public sculptures created by Brink, both with and without the assistance of the Percent for Art Program, that are still displayed today include Unfolding Red at the Brookfield Public Library, The Spirit of Manitou at the Tippecanoe Branch Library, and Deflected Jets located on the Milwaukee Fire Engine Company #29 grounds.

Public sculpture plays an important role in shaping a city’s cultural identity and connecting with communities. Brink’s public works stand as lasting markers of his influence in the Midwest and his commitment to his artistic practice. One can gain some insight into the practical and civic aspects of creating public art in 20th-century Milwaukee through the correspondence, press, and photographs within the collection. It was incredible learning about his works through the materials in his archive, and I am glad that others will now be able to do the same through either Artwork Archive or CONTENTdm.

Several of Brink’s works are also on view throughout the MIAD campus, and a semi-permanent installation of his works is on view on the 4th floor. If you are ever in Milwaukee’s Third Ward, I encourage you to stop by and visit the campus, peruse the galleries, and take a look at what’s on display.

I walked past these works every day this summer and was always inspired, and I can only imagine that the students, faculty, staff, and visitors on campus feel the same way when looking at Brink’s work.

Cecelia Loeschmann is a graduate student intern working with MIAD as part of the Recollection Wisconsin Digitization Initiative. For more information about this program, visit our website or contact vicki [at] wils.org. For more information about the Guido Brink Collection, contact the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD).