Past Exhibitions

September 10 – November 27, 2022
Majestic yet fragile, birds connect us with the natural world. Heralding each sunrise and gathering at dusk, these harbingers of seasonal and environmental change endlessly fascinate and inspire. All-new work by the world’s most talented artists provide a splendid array of perspectives and insights. After artwork is selected in May, information and images are shared when finalized as the exhibition is prepared for the fall opening. The Birds in Art exhibition opening is part of Wausau’s Artrageous Weekend.

September 10 – October 23
Visualize avian voices via sculptures inspired by the recorded calls of extinct or endangered birds. Resembling a forest of vertical forms, the sculptures by California- and New York-based artist Elizabeth Turk are enhanced by interactive elements: scannable recordings of the lost or endangered birds’ voices.
Turk is the featured speaker on opening day of Tipping Point and Birds in Art 2022, Saturday morning, September 10, 9:30-10:30 am.

August 28, 2022 through January 29, 2023
The idea of the Midwest as a geographic region with fluid borders in the mid-twentieth century when artists navigated, negotiated, and incorporated international and regional influences, is at the heart of this exhibition drawn from the Museum’s collection.

June 11 – August 28, 2022
Farm to Table considers the farm as a site of production, both artistic and agricultural. It features artworks from the Woodson Art Museum collection that showcase the barnyard as a site of orderly nature, fenced in first by the farmer and second by the artist’s frame.

June 11 – August 28, 2022
Celebrating the diversity and history of cultivated plants grown for clothing, healing, and food, this exhibition features plants discovered on international travels, picked up at farmers’ markets, and plucked from the artists’ own gardens. The artworks created by American Society of Botanical Artists were selected for The New York Botanical Garden’s Fourth Triennial, devoted to biological diversity in cultivated utilitarian plants.

June 11 – August 28, 2022
Ginny Ruffner: Reforestation of the Imagination, a mixed-media art installation, features hand-blown glass sculptures initially conveying a barren landscape of tree stumps until a complex and colorful alternative environment is revealed through an augmented-reality lens.

March 5 – August 14, 2022
From seemingly traditional to wildly abstract, glass artwork from the Woodson Art Museum collection highlights the range of studio glass experimentation from the 1970s through the 1990s. From initial studio glass experimentation to more technical subsequent methods, Molten showcases the possibilities unlocked by a new and ever-exploratory artistic approach.
The presentation of and Molten: 30 Years of American Glass and Art Deco Glass from the David Huchthausen Collection coincides with the 60th anniversary of the Studio Glass movement and the International Year of Glass 2022, proclaimed and endorsed by the United Nations.

March 5 – June 5, 2022
Clean lines, geometric shapes, and bright colors characterize Art Deco glass from the Huchthausen Collection in this exhibition organized by Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington. Emerging in contrast to Art Nouveau’s ornate style amid World War I austerity, Art Deco glass fell out of favor after World War II, and regained popularity in the 1970s. Glass by iconic Art Deco studios comprises the collection of David Huchthausen, a glass artist with Wisconsin roots whose work altered the history of contemporary glass.