FEB 08, 2025 - JUN 08, 2025
Myth & Folly
This exhibition, featuring artwork from the Woodson’s collection, examines how the use of myth and animals in art allows for the blending of imagination and tradition.
ART EXHIBITIONS IN WAUSAU
Current Exhibitions
The Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum regularly refreshes our galleries with temporary exhibitions and selections from our permanent collection. Visitors can look forward to new opportunities to enrich their appreciation for art throughout the year.
On View Today
MAR 01, 2025 - JUN 01, 2025
Gridiron Garments
This exhibition, representing a partnership between the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, chronicles the history of pro football uniform design through player-worn artifacts chosen to represent the evolution of these “gridiron garments.”
MAR 01, 2025 - JUN 01, 2025
Kimono: Garment, Canvas, & Artistic Muse
This exhibition showcases woven, dyed, painted, printed, and embroidered designs by historic Japanese textile artists alongside contemporary artworks—made in glass, paper, metal, ceramic, and other materials—from around the world, all inspired by the kimono.
Find Your Inspiration
From toddlers to retirees—and every stage of life in between—the Woodson offers an enriching experience for all visitors.
Be a Part of Our Canvas
Every visit to the Woodson offers new opportunities to learn and grow.
The Latest From Our Blog
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April 24, 2025
We Launched Our New Website!
Whether it’s your 1st or 51st visit to our website, we’ve made some big changes we think you’ll appreciate. With the help of the award-winning website agency, Lifted Logic, we created a new and improved digital space that better reflects who...
April 9, 2025
Every Picture Has a Story
I will continue to defer when I’m asked the question about which artwork or artworks in the collection are my favorite, not because I don’t have feelings about them, but because I care about each in its own special way.
April 2, 2025
Don’t Forget the ABCs: Art, Bourbon, and Creativity
I'm going to let these conference experiences sink in over a glass of Kentucky bourbon before preparing for the busy upcoming summer months of programming at the Museum.
Our Collection
Many of our temporary exhibitions are drawn from the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum’s permanent collection. Our collection features a vast array of artwork featuring and celebrating the natural world.
OUR COLLECTION
Many of our temporary exhibitions are drawn from the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum’s permanent collection. Our collection features a vast array of artwork featuring and celebrating the natural world.
Founding family-donated decorative arts comprised the initial holdings of the Woodson Art Museum, and an exhibition focused on avian art, Birds of the Lakes, Fields, and Forests, celebrated the fledgling Museum’s debut. This inaugural exhibition matured and developed into Birds in Art, an internationally acclaimed, juried exhibition.
The exhibition led to the focus of the Woodson’s collection, which now sets the standard for art of the avian world and complementary natural-world and animal themes. In addition to significant historic and contemporary artworks acquired throughout the Museum’s history, outdoor sculpture holdings also have grown, dominating the landscape of the Museum’s campus.
Today, our collection includes more than 14,000 works of art. It spans paintings, drawings, field sketches, graphics, photographs, and sculptures—all celebrating the essence and spirit of birds from across the globe.
The Woodson’s collection also includes decorative arts. We have more than 125 Victorian glass baskets, early twentieth-century utilitarian and decorative glassware and porcelains, nearly 100 Royal Worcester porcelain bird figurines designed by Dorothy Doughty, and a survey collection of historic and contemporary glass vessel forms and sculptural objects.
While our entire permanent collection is not available for public view, we rotate out which pieces are on display through our ever-changing temporary art exhibitions in Wausau. Currently, our team is working on a searchable online archive of our collection. At present, we have added more than 700 pieces of artwork from the Museum’s collection to the archive, with new pieces to come. You can search by artist, medium, bird species, and more!
Campus Installations
In addition to our temporary exhibitions, the Woodson Museum’s campus has a number of permanent installations for our visitors to enjoy with every visit.
Rooftop Sculpture Garden
Debuting in tandem with Birds in Art 2021, the Kathy Kelsey Foley Rooftop Sculpture Garden features sculptures along with a pergola and seating options. Its design encourages visitors to sit and enjoy art, nature, and seasonally changing vistas, all in one place.
Sculpture Garden
The Margaret Woodson Fisher Sculpture Garden features a variety of large and small-scale sculptures set against a backdrop of native flora. Every season brings new experiences and delights for visitors to enjoy, and we use the sculpture garden as a flexible venue for a range of outdoor programs.
Additional sculptures are on the grounds around the sculpture garden. Artistic styles vary from sculpture to sculpture, like Deborah Butterfield’s Kua to Burt Brent’s The Heavyweight. Kent Ullberg’s striking bronze whooping cranes stand as iconic sentinels at the garden’s entrance.
Art Park
Located on the Museum’s lower level, Art Park is our interactive family gallery that offers hands-on learning for all ages. Featuring puzzles, books, art supplies, guided programs, and more, Art Park helps even our youngest visitors exercise their curiosity, increase their knowledge, and explore the visual arts.
Schedule a Tour
Interested in organizing a group to view our art exhibitions in Wausau? We offer self-guided and docent-led tours, educational resources, art kits, and activity guides designed to help you and your group learn about our exhibitions and engage with our artwork on a deeper level.
Each tour will focus on the current exhibitions, and we can tailor school tours to support specific classroom curricula. We can also incorporate a hands-on art-making component relating to the exhibition’s themes.
Museum Shop
We have a variety of postcards, notecards, and posters available for purchase, featuring artwork from our current exhibitions. If you’d like to explore previous iterations of our Birds in Art exhibitions in Wausau, we also sell fully illustrated catalogues from years past.
