Grohmann Museum Remembers the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

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Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Public Library

Edmund Fitzgerald

The Edmund Fitzgerald

As the story goes, Gordon Lightfoot was reading Newsweek on a transcontinental flight in November 1975, when he came across a two-paragraph sidebar on a recent maritime disaster, the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. The loss of all 29 crewmembers and one of the largest lakers in service struck a chord with the singer-songwriter. He felt the story deserved more than two paragraphs, and since he emerged from the folk music revival, whose proponents turned news of the day into topical ballads, he decided to write a song.

Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” sailed to number two on the charts. Aside from marine history buffs, the reason many people remember the ship and its sinking is his song. With the half century anniversary of the shipwreck hard upon us, the Grohmann Museum has mounted “The Legend Lives On: 50 Years Later,” an exhibition focused on the Fitzgerald and similar Great Lakes ore carriers.

“For the 50th anniversary of this this tragic event, we commemorate the ship and her impact on popular culture through this display of paintings, photographs, models and drawings of the ship under construction and on the water,” says the Grohmann’s director, James Kieselburg.

“The Legend Lives On” is in keeping with the Grohmann’s mission to display art that represents industry and work, whether on land or water. Some of the artwork was included in a 2020 exhibit, “Two Edmunds: Fitzgerald and Lewandowski,” dedicated to Milwaukee artist Edmund Lewandowski (1914-1998), specifically his depictions of the Edmund Fitzgerald. “It opened during the pandemic and the visitorship was light,” Kieselburg says. For many museumgoers, this will be the first opportunity to see the artwork.

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Image courtesy of Grohmann Museum

Edmund Fitzgerald by Edmund Lewandowski

September 24, 2025Art Culture & StyleA painting of the bow of the Edmund Fitzgerald. “Edmund Fitzgerald” (1959), Edmund D. Lewandowski. Oil on canvas.

Lewandowski was commissioned to paint the Edmund Fitzgerald by its namesake, an executive at Northwestern Mutual, and returned to the subject several times during his lifetime. His paintings are a dominant factor in the exhibit, along with black and white photographs taken during the ship’s construction and launch in River Rouge, Michigan. The Fitzgerald’s mission was to ferry iron ore from Superior, Wis. to Detroit and Cleveland. According to Kieselburg, it called only once on Milwaukee.

“The Legend Lives On” includes the Edmund Fitzgerald’s engineering plans, an elaborate scale model of the ship by Milwaukee’s Jerry Guenther and a photo essay by Christopher Winters of the final voyage of the Arthur Anderson, a slightly smaller sister to the Fitzgerald, giving vivid testimony to the icy conditions of November on Lake Superior. Winters’ new book on the Fitzgerald, The Legend Lives On: Commemorative 50th Anniversary Edition, will be on sale at the Grohmann. The show also includes a painting by Milwaukee’s Russ Porter depicting the Fitzgerald on the lakebed where it remains today, a protected site in honor of the lost sailors.

In his lyric, Lightfoot didn’t touch upon the legend that the Fitzgerald was jinxed. During the christening by Elizabeth Fitzgerald (Edmund’s wife), the champagne bottle refused to break. The ship’s launch sent a 12-foot wave into the grandstand. One spectator died of a heart attack. Despite those mishaps, the ship sailed the lakes from 1958 through its wreck in the November gales of 1975. The lakes remain rough as winter sets in but given improvements in communication and navigation technology, the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald might be the last Great Lakes maritime disaster of its scale.

Christopher Winters will give a gallery talk and sign books at the Grohmann on Gallery Night, 5-9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17. “The Legend Lives On: 50 Years Later” runs through December 1 at the Grohmann Museum, 1000 N. Broadway.