Tale of Two: Iris Häussler

In a 2017 review in Art In America, Milena Tomic wrote, “Iris Häussler has subsumed her identity in fictional artistic persona.” Second self, fictional artistic persona or alternative personalities are manifestations of an alter ego. Although many artists embody an alter ego as a creative tool, Iris Häussler has employed this creative tactic with not one, but many characters of varying ages and genders throughout her decades-long career.

In this exhibition, Häussler introduces a new character, Florence Hasard, for the first time to American audiences at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. A French immigrant, Florence arrived in Milwaukee in the 1920s and, at this stage in the research, it is believed she was connected to Layton School of Art founders Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink, the WPA Wisconsin Handicraft Project, and the Milwaukee craft community. The details of her story and artworks will be revealed in the exhibition Tale of Two: Iris Häussler. There is a trace of Florence in Milwaukee after 1942, but we look to the recently discovered inventory of her paintings, drawings, sketches, and notes for clues of her experience in the region during the post-war era in Wisconsin.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.