Meet More Bettys!

JOIN US IN HONORING THE 2021 BETTY AWARD WINNERS AT AN EVENT ON DEC. 7 AT THE SAINT KATE ARTS HOTEL

Michelle Grabner keeps many plates spinning. She’s an internationally recognized, Milwaukee-based artist in painting, drawing, sculpture and videography. She curated the 2016 Portland Biennial and the 2018 Cleveland Triennial and was co-curator of the 2014 Whitney Biennial and this year’s Sculpture Milwaukee.

Grabner is also a professor and the senior chair of the painting and drawing department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She co-founded, with her husband Brad Killam, two artist-run project spaces: The Suburban and The Poor Farm. She is the only Wisconsin artist to be both an academician in the National Academy and a Guggenheim Fellow.

“Yes, I juggle at lot,” says Grabner, 59. “I just love the work.”

Grabner was inspired by her art teacher at Appleton East High School, so she strives to nurture younger artists. “Right now, it’s hard to be a young artist – to be represented by a gallery, to be written about,” she says. “I feel a great responsibility to make opportunities for them.”

Michelle Grabner is one of the 2021 recipients of a Betty Award. Each year, Milwaukee Magazine presents these awards as a tribute to the late Betty Quadracci, the magazine’s former publisher who founded Quad with her husband Harry. Read more about this year’s honorees here. 

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