Before there was a Milwaukee Art Museum, there was a Layton Art Gallery. All but forgotten today, the gallery was a stately stone temple that dominated the northeast corner of Mason and Jefferson streets, one block south of Cathedral Square, from 1888 to 1957. For generations of Milwaukeeans, it was an oasis of culture in a city better known for smokestacks than still lifes.
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The gallery and its collection were the gifts of legendary philanthropist Frederick Layton. A native of England who came to Milwaukee at age 16, Layton grew his family’s Downtown butcher shop into one of the region’s largest meat-packing firms, selling hams, pork shoulders, dried beef, bacon and lard throughout the United States and Europe.
Although he made his fortune in a slaughterhouse, Layton’s abiding passion was art. During his frequent trips to Europe, Layton called on customers, but he also collected paintings, with a typically Victorian fondness for landscapes, still lifes and domestic scenes. In 1888, after deciding to share his collection with the public, Layton opened his gallery on Jefferson. The entire project, including an endowment, cost him $265,000 – nearly $9 million in today’s dollars.
The gift came with no strings attached. Admission was free, and the gallery was open on Sunday, the only day off for the city’s working families. Layton was an ardent believer in the power of art to bring “beauty into barren lives,” including, presumably, the lives of his own packing-house workers.
The Layton Art Gallery faithfully pursued its mission for nearly 70 years, long enough to serve as a bridge to the city’s next cultural era. In 1957, its paintings and sculptures moved to the new War Memorial Center as the core collection of what is now the Milwaukee Art Museum. Emptied of its treasures, the temple on Jefferson was replaced by a parking structure.
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK
- Victorian curators often grouped their paintings “salon style” rather than showing them individually.
- Homer and His Guide, an 1874 oil by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, is one of dozens of Layton Collection paintings now on permanent display in the Milwaukee Art Museum.
- “Do Not Touch the Pictures,” warned signs on every wall.
- Edwin Eldridge, posing here in about 1890, was the gallery’s first curator.
IN COLLABORATION WITH MILWAUKEE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Correction: An earlier headline on this story misstated the ownership of the Layton Art Collection.
