Image courtesy of David Barnett Gallery
Two Riders in Red by Wassily Kandinsky
'Two Riders in Red' by Wassily Kandinsky from his book 'Klänge.'
In 2026, David Barnett turns 80 and his gallery turns 60. When it began in 1966, the David Barnett Gallery was an outlet for art students, but soon enough Burnett realized he couldn’t make it selling $2 pottery. Borrowing money from his father, he went to New York in 1968, purchasing art for resale at prices incredibly low by today’s market value. The Miro he bought in Manhattan for $100 sold for $150 in Milwaukee that year. His coup was the $1,500 Kandinsky purchased by a prominent local collector for $2,500.
At the center of the Barnett Gallery’s next exhibition, “Sounds: Gershwin, Kandinsky, and Barnett,” are 24 woodcuts from Kandinsky’s 1912 “Klänge” portfolio. Klänge is German for “sound,” and George Gershwin, it’s said, heard music as color (or did he see color as music?).
Inspiration for the show came from Olivia Mattis’ book, George Gershwin and Modern Art: A Rhapsody in Blue. “Gershwin had a nephew in Paris, an artist, who’d send him photographs of paintings—recommendations,” Barnett says. “Gershwin had money during the Depression. He bought artwork. He also did some of his own artwork.”
Before his death in 1937, Gershwin amassed an impressive collection of modern art. Although none of those pieces are included in the “Sounds” exhibit, Barnett brought together pieces by some of the artists Gershwin collected, including Henri Matisse, Andre Derain and Abraham Walkowitz, an organizer of the 1913 Armory Show that introduced Cubism and other isms to America.
Image courtesy of David Barnett Gallery
Foggy Day by David Barnett
'Foggy Day' by David Barnett, oil pastel on paper
Barnett, an artist as well as a gallery owner, is the third tier of the exhibit. He painted his interpretations of Gershwin songs while Milwaukee music teacher Heinzel Kunsmann played them on piano. The gallery’s digital manager Jake Whalen recorded their interaction on camera for a video to be screened at the exhibit. Barnett’s oil and pastel I’ve Got Plenty o’ Nottin’ has lots of white space around the musical color squiggles. The dancing stickmen of “Foggy Day” stand for Fred Astaire, who introduced the song in the 1937 film A Damsel in Distress.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
When he was in high school, Barnett recalls, he said he’d give his right arm for the Bradley Collection Kandinsky hanging at the Milwaukee Art Museum. All these years later, Barnett still has both arms—and the museum still has its Kandinsky—but he can look back at 60 successful years in a tricky business and forward to a new exhibit featuring his favorite artist, his own work and a touch of Gershwin.
“Sounds: Gershwin, Kandinsky, and Barnett” opens on Gallery Night, Friday July 17, at David Barnett Gallery, 1024 E. State St.
