Past Exhibitions

Birding by the Book comprises illustrated bound volumes along with framed, hand-colored engravings by early explorers, artists, and naturalists, including Alexander Wilson, John James Audubon, and John and Elizabeth Gould.

September 11 – November 28, 2021
From their lyrical birdsong to their migratory patterns, birds connect us to the rhythms of life. For the 46th year, this annual exhibition attracts worldwide artists’ original paintings, sculptures, and graphics created within the past three years. Since 1976, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum has organized Birds in Art annually, seeking to present the best contemporary artistic interpretations of avian themes.

June 12 – August 29, 2021
Quilts are a narrative art form, featuring themes that are political, spiritual, communal, and commemorative. Infused with history and memory, quilts map out intimate stories and legacies through a handcrafted language of design.

June 12 – August 29, 2021
A giant, map-like quilt, created by Sarah FitzSimons, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Art Department faculty artist, features varying shades of blue fabric to convey the Pacific Ocean’s underwater topography and sewn lines depicting surface currents. FitzSimons notes other commonalities: “Both water and fabric flow. Both cover. Both can conceal, reveal, and shift. Pacific Quilt proposes a link between our daily cycle of sleeping and waking, with the rise and fall of ocean tides.”

Birds make us happy. We admire their beauty and diversity and envy their ability to soar and fly. Acute observers, artists strive to capture the essence of of their subjects and interpret birdlife through intense study and observation, photography, and sketching, often spending hours in the field before taking to the studio. Celebrating avian life and the artists who share their talents, this exhibition of artwork from the Museum’s collection focuses on five themes:

• Day at the Beach
• Ducking Out
• Enchanted Evening
• Follow the Line
• In the Pink

March 6 – June 6, 2021
Artworks from the collection share the spotlight with stories about why and how they were created by artists and acquired by the Woodson Art Museum. Discover the tale and trace the trail that led to the acquisition of a rare oil painting by John James Audubon and a hand-colored aquatint created for Audubon’s The Birds of America.
Anecdotes about noteworthy owners and personal relationships are woven throughout other stories. A watercolor painting by Frank Weston Benson, Chickadees, which had been owned by poet Robert Frost, became the perfect way to honor a member of the Museum’s founding family, fondly remembered for wearing a chickadee-embroidered sweater.
Experience artwork by three generations of Wyeth painters, N.C., Andrew, and Jamie, comparing and contrasting their distinct styles and gaining insights into their inspiration and work.

Hunting is deeply rooted in human culture, extending over all seven continents. Through the work of painters, sculptors, and graphic artists dating from the early nineteenth century into the twenty-first century, the changing role of birds and animals within the context of the hunt is illustrated and celebrated.

March 13 – April 25, 2021

Celebrate Youth Art Month and the creative efforts of Central Wisconsin students in grades 5-8 via the 44th Student Art Exhibition. Each March, the nation promotes art education by focusing on student work. The exhibition is open to art specialists teaching in public, parochial, and home schools in Central Wisconsin. For details, access and read the Prospectus. To prepare your students’ entries for delivery, access and complete both the Master List and Entry Tags and include with delivered artwork.