By the early 1970s, Mia was getting claustrophobic. It hadn’t built any new galleries since the 1920s, and, like so much of the ’70s, was suffocating from excess. Witness the wallpaper. This photo was taken in March 1972 at the groundbreaking of the museum’s new expansion, which would open in fall 1974. A minimalist addition designed by  ...

Andrea Swensson, who hosts The Local Show on MPR’s 89.3 The Current and writes its music blog, launched a podcast last September called The O.K. Show. It explores the intersection of mental health and creativity, the emotions that artists express in music, and how music, in turn, can impact those emotions. It’s candid and conversational,  ...

Harriet Goodhue Hosmer was one of the leading female sculptors of the 1800s, possibly the only woman of her time to gain complete financial independence through her art. Like Rosa Bonheur, another highly successful and unorthodox woman artist, Hosmer was encouraged by her father to pursue art and physical activity—she was a sickly child—and traveled west  ...

Rosa Bonheur was one of a kind—the most renowned female artist of her day and fiercely independent, dressing like a man in defiance of Victorian-era gender roles. Most of her work featured animals—lions, horses, goats. She frequented slaughterhouses to better understand the anatomy and emotions of animals. “I became an animal painter because I loved to move among  ...

Before Doryphoros, before Mia’s grand 24th Street entrance closed for a time, the museum’s rotunda was occupied by a warrior: The Fighter of the Spirit. Ernst Barlach’s sculpture of an angel defeating what may be the so-called wolf of materialism or greed became a pacifist symbol when it was created in 1928, in the wake of  ...

Elizabeth Catlett was the granddaughter of former slaves. She focused her art, a mix of sculpture, painting, and prints, on the struggle for civil rights and the female African-American experience. She was a teacher at first, before World War II, when opportunities for women artists, much less African-American women, were almost non-existent. It was a trip to  ...

Lace was a luxury in the 1600s, sometimes formed with metallic threads of gold and silver—you could literally wear your wealth on your sleeve. Women made all of it. Young women, usually, even girls. The work required so much focus, squinting in dim candlelight, that failing eyesight was an occupational hazard. Lacemaking was not a  ...

Check mate. With those words, artists Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst struck up a 34-year relationship over a game of chess in Tanning’s New York City studio. A self-portrait, Birthday, had caught Ernst’s eye. It shows her in a hallway full of open doors, her blouse open, revealing her chest, winged chimera squatting on the floor  ...

“I can’t tell you how to be a mom,” said Andy DuCett. It was the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, a few days before the “State of the Art” exhibition opened at Mia, featuring DuCett’s Mom Booth. And DuCett needed some volunteers—he needed some moms. DuCett, based in Minneapolis, has become a regular contributor to Mia’s  ...

“I WARN YOU, I REFUSE TO BE AN OBJECT.” Those words greet visitors to the Leonora Carrington Foundation website. Rebellious and strident, Carrington forged a remarkable artistic career in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Keen on the work of the surrealists, she was 20 when she met German artist Max Ernst at  ...