Image: Details from Mary Whyte’s WE THE PEOPLE: Portraits of Veterans in America. Courtesy Grohmann Museum, Milwaukee
The Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee has extended ‘WE THE PEOPLE: Portraits of Veterans in America,’ Mary Whyte’s exhibition of watercolor portraits of military veterans, through September 13, 2026. The exhibition, originally scheduled to run from May 7 through August 23, presents veterans from across the United States alongside accounts of their continued work in American industry and public life.
The project comprises 50 large-scale watercolor portraits produced from seven years of travel and interviews. Whyte depicts veterans of different ages and professional backgrounds, focusing on the ways they continue to contribute after military service. The subjects include a Missouri dairy farmer, a Rhode Island lobsterman and a Pennsylvania science teacher.
According to the museum, the series connects the history of military service with the broader subject of labor. Its portraits extend beyond military identity to consider work in agriculture, education and public service. The exhibition presents those roles as part of a wider survey of American life shaped by labor and human achievement.
The Grohmann Museum said its participation in the Blue Star Museums program the previous summer prompted it to explore veterans’ contributions through art. The museum’s programming is centered on the history and representation of work, with exhibitions and a permanent collection devoted to industrial art. It is located at 1000 N. Broadway on the campus of Milwaukee School of Engineering in downtown Milwaukee.
Whyte has focused throughout her career on working America and the nation’s working class, according to the museum’s exhibition materials. In ‘WE THE PEOPLE,’ that interest takes the form of a national portrait project. The individual interviews conducted during the artist’s travels provide the basis for portraits that place personal experience within a larger account of work and service across the country.
The Grohmann Museum is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. General admission is $5, with admission for students and seniors priced at $3; children under 12, as well as MSOE students, alumni, faculty and staff with identification, enter free. ‘WE THE PEOPLE: Portraits of Veterans in America’ remains on view through September 13, 2026.
