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Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

1910–1983, b. Marinette, Wisconsin; d. Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Available Works

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein was a Milwaukee-based, self-taught artist active from the early 1940s through the early 1980s. Living in a modest house, which served as both a studio and exhibition space, with his wife and muse, Marie, he created a world of highly original beauty steeped in an idiosyncratic synthesis of non-Western art and architecture, girly magazine archetypes, theories of cosmic genesis, and current events like the Cold War fear of nuclear annihilation. Von Bruenchenhein was incredibly prolific and an artistic polymath, working across various media and subject matters including kitchen oven-fired ceramics; fantastical paintings of strange animals, the cosmos, and imaginary architecture; and erotically-charged photographs of Marie.

 

Von Bruenchenhein was recently the subject of a major retrospective at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (2017-18). He was included in the 2013 Venice Biennale, The Encyclopedic Palace. Other recent exhibitions include The Alternative Guide to the Universe, Hayward Gallery, London and Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art From the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, both in 2013. Von Bruenchenhein’s work is in the collections of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC, among others.

Works

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Exhibitions

2023

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2009

1998

Publications

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Ceramic Sculptures: Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

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Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: Time Produced Non Better

News

Dear John

(group)


JTT
New York, NY
Mar 19–Apr 24, 2021 

In collaboration with Adams and Ollman and Fleisher/Ollman

 

James Castle
Felipe Jesus Consalvos
William Edmondson
Lee Godie
William Hawkins
Philadelphia Wireman
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein
Bill Walton
Joseph Yoakum

Mar 24, 2021

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And Now, the Independent Fair! Rising Stars, Undersung Artists, and Royalty Alight in Tribeca

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Outliers and American Vanguard Art

National Gallery of Art

Washington, DC

Jan 28–May 13, 2018

 

Curated by Lynne Cooke, and including Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, James Castle, Howard Finster, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Elijah Pierce, Horace Pippin, Christina Ramber, Martín Ramírez, Edgar Tolson, Bill Trayor, P.M. Wentworth, H.C. Westermann, Joseph Yoakum, Forrest Bess, Roger Brown, William Edmondson, Lee Godie, Morris Hirshfield, among others.

Jan 27, 2018

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Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: Mythologies

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein
John Michael Kohler Arts Center
Sheboygan, WI
Jun 25, 2017–Jan 14, 2018

Jun 25, 2017

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Artforum Critics’ Picks: Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

Anne Prentnieks on Time Produced Non Better
 
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

Nov 22, 2013

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Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia, PA
Mar 3–Jun 9, 2013

 

Group show featuring James Castle, Bill Traylor, Eddie Arning, William Hawkins, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Joseph Yoakum, et. al.

Mar 03, 2013

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