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James Kieselburg - Milwaukee School of Engineering. Milwaukee, WI, US

James Kieselburg

Director | Milwaukee School of Engineering

Milwaukee, WI, UNITED STATES

James Kieselburg is an expert in museum collections and exhibition management, sociology of work, photography and the art of industry.

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414ward: Two

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Education, Licensure and Certification (3)

M.S.: Anthropology and Museum Studies, University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee 1997

B.A.: Anthropology and Museum Studies, Beloit College 1993

Master's Certification: Museum Studies and Curation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee & Milwaukee Public Museum 1996

Biography

James Kieselburg is director of the Grohmann Museum at MSOE. His areas of expertise include museum collections and exhibit management, the sociology of work, art of industry and graphic design. Kieselburg has spent the past 20+ years at the museums of Beloit College, UW-Milwaukee, Marquette University and MSOE.

He is the curator of several recent exhibitions including David Plowden’s Portraits of Work, The Art and Mechanics of Animation, and The Magnificent Machines of Milwaukee. He has also published numerous books, essays and articles for the Grohmann Museum, The Society for Industrial Archeology, and Railroad Heritage magazine. His scholarly pursuits focus on museum design, the art of human industry, and the sociology of work.

Areas of Expertise (5)

Photography

Art of Industry

Museum Management and Leadership

Sociology of Work

Graphic Design

Affiliations (3)

  • Milwaukee Museum Consortium : Member
  • American Alliance of Museums (AAM) : Member
  • Wisconsin Federation of Museums (WFM) : Member

Social

Media Appearances (2)

‘Magnificent Machines of Milwaukee’ honors Milwaukee engineers and their inventions

88Nine Radio Milwaukee  

2019-09-10

Kieselburg says he hopes the gallery inspires a sense of awe and wonder when looking at the exhibit. “A surprise like, ‘This really happened in Milwaukee? These things were invented here?'” said Kieselburg. “Like the typewriter, for instance, I don’t know that everybody knows that, the typewriter as we know it today they were invented in Milwaukee on, four blocks from the museum here. It was revolutionary, that had a global impact. For one machine made in Milwaukee, it had a ripple effect was just amazing.”

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A focus as big as all outdoors

Chicago Tribune  

2012-11-02

The museum also mounted an exhibition of Plowden's railroad photographs last year, which was "perhaps our most successful exhibition to date," said museum director James Kieselburg II. "Not only do we admire David's unparalleled vision, but because our focus is on the art of industry and human achievement, we have a real affinity for his subjects: rural America, steam locomotives, steel mills, bridges and the like."

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Selected Publications (5)

STEEL: The Cycle of Industry by David Plowden

MSOE

Kieselburg, J., Plowden D.

2017

The Scope of Early Twentieth-Century German Industrial Art: Works in the Grohmann Museum of Art

H-Labor-Arts

Kieselburg, J.

2017 Despite the vast social and economic changes the Industrial Revolution unleashed upon Europe, artists in the nineteenth century were initially slow to understand the potential of the industrial image. Klaus Herding, a scholar of German industrial art, rightly asks, “Why did the visual arts not spontaneously turn to large-scale industry as a new subject? Why did the so-called artistic ‘fathers’ of the twentieth century—Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat—hardly deal with industry…? Why did the so-called Materialist or Socialist painters, Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet, not depict factory workers but instead focused upon peasants and rural laborers?”

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Carl Spitzweg in Milwaukee

MSOE

Kieselburg, J.

2015 Editor

Masterworks from the Grohmann Museum Collection

MSOE

Kieselburg, J.

2014 Editor

The Art of Railroad Work

Center for Railroad Photography and Art

Kieselburg, J.

2014 Art of the railroad from the Grohmann Museum Collection