50 Paintings

The Milwaukee Art Museum presents the landmark survey 50 Paintings, featuring works created within the last five years by 50 international artists whose many strategies and styles are shaping the art form today. With paintings by artists including Jake Troyli, Judy Ledgerwood, Amy Sherald, Cinga Samson, GaHee Park, Nicole Eisenman, Cecily Brown, and Peter Barrickman, the exhibition celebrates the medium’s continued relevance and aesthetic range and invites visitors to engage in close looking and formulate their own assessments of trends in contemporary painting.

Painting—as a form, a language, a practice—is the focus of the exhibition, and the survey format underscores myriad approaches that define the current moment in the field. 50 Paintings offers visitors 50 distinct opportunities to experience this traditional art form shaped by influential artists.

50 Paintings was co-curated by Margaret Andera, senior curator of contemporary art, and Michelle Grabner, artist, curator, and Crown Family Professor of Art and Chair of Painting and Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

To learn more and find related events, visit mam.org/50paintings. 

Image credit:

Jake Troyli (American, b. 1990) Self-portrait as a country club legend, 2021. Oil on canvas. 20 × 16 in. Collection of Kim and Casey Sadler. Image: Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Collection of Kim and Casey Sadler.