The Gruenke Foundation for the Arts has over 70 pieces of artwork in its care. Included are many invaluable pieces dating back centuries. The collection consists of numerous varieties of original sketches, oil paintings, pottery vases, hand-carved and painted corpra and crosses, porcelain figures, Greek Icons, Persian carpets, batiks and tapestries, bronze statues, plaques and candlesticks, mouth blown glass, hand-carved ivory, stained glass panels and swag lamps, mosaics and several 15th Century Gregorian Books on goats skin.
The organization is interested in displaying art works in public museums, art galleries, and charitable organizations.
Two Columbus Mosaics
A pair of 8’ x 15’ mosaics, featuring scenes of Columbus discovering America and Columbus at the court of Queen Isabella, were displayed at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and later installed in the lobby of the (now demolished) Columbus Memorial Building.
Your help is needed in the required conservation or restoration work before these mosaics could be properly displayed.
Erhard Stoettner Collection
This collection includes drawings, paintings, stained glass, and sculpture donated by Ronald Stoettner for care and conservation by the Gruenke Foundation.
16th to 19th Century Fine Arts Collection
Bernard O. Gruenke’s passion for art included collecting fine works of art from around the world. This collection includes beautiful Old Masters pieces.
Stained Glass Collection
In more than a century of working in the ecclesiastical arts, Conrad Schmitt Studios acquired quite a number of stained glass pieces. These works are currently under the stewardship of the Gruenke Foundation, for the purposes of restoration and display.
Bernard O. Gruenke Oil Paintings Collection:
In addition to collecting works of art, Bernard O. Gruenke was an accomplished artist in his own right. The Foundation maintains a collection of his oil paintings, including portraits, landscapes, and still life, spanning more than 70 years – a lifetime of art.
Bernard O. Gruenke: Watercolors & Pastels Collection
Some of Bernard O. Gruenke’s most personal artwork includes pieces in watercolor and pastel. In these spontaneous media pieces, Senior captured the moments
of everyday life – views from his hilltop Wisconsin home, his children and grandchildren playing at the family lake cottage, portraits of his family, and studies of religious figures.
Fine Arts Renderings Collection
The traditional process for designing a stained glass window or decorative interior involves artists’ renderings of the proposed space. Today, these renderings are often completed on a computer, but for more than one hundred years, artists at Conrad Schmitt Studios produced these designs by hand, in pencil, ink, and watercolor. These drawings, dating from as early as 1915, are now under the stewardship of the Gruenke Foundation, in addition to drawings from a number of other stained glass studios art.