The Neville Blog

One of the things we are excited about for the Generations Gallery going forward is that the space allows us to make changes and rotate artifacts.  The exhibit opened in August 2020, and we are excited to share we opened our first new rotation last week!  The first rendition of the Art section featured Nature in Art.   Now we are rotating in Portraits.   These depictions of people from all different time periods and backgrounds are all from the Neville Public Museum’s collection.   You might even recognize a few artist or sitters.   Here are 5 things you want to look for!   Fear George Catlin George Catlin (1796-1872), well-known for his paintings of Native Americans, drew a series of self-portraits in 1821. They found their way to Green Bay through his nephew, Theodore Burr Catlin. George Catlin did the self-portraits at night, before a mirror, simulating facial expressions of various emotions. The drawings all have similar facial outlines...

Helen was a devoted educator, talented artist, and a local history advocate in Green Bay. Helen is particularly important to the Neville because without her we may not be where we are today. In honor of all she’s done for our community and the museum we want to share just a few of her accomplishments. Helen is one of several special women that lived here in Brown County that valued the arts and the preservation of history. Helen’s dedication to preservation of history is most evident in her hard work to make our current museum building a reality. Helen served as President of the Neville Public Museum Corporation. Before 1983 the museum sat in a smaller and less conducive building on Jefferson St. Helen fought for a new facility that was eventually supported by the county, the city, and private donors, a true community project. Here is Helen breaking ground with the County Executive, the Mayor, and the Museum Director. Neville Foundation president, Helen Ferslev, Mayor Samuel Halloin, B...

Over the course of my time with The Neville Public Museum I encountered many interesting characters of Brown County’s past. However, none fascinate me more than the Dale Kuipers (1947-1996). From comic book creatures, movie monsters, and flowering flora, Dale created sublime works of art and Hollywood special effects. I had the privilege of becoming familiar with Kuipers resulting from my work on a temporary Neville exhibition, Dale Kuipers: Green Bay’s Monster Maker. Unfortunately, learning about Dale was not the easiest task. Due to union conflicts most of his Hollywood film work goes uncredited. Further records are sparse and scattered. Luckily, the Neville provided me a wealth of resources for research. Therefore, I find it befitting to share some of what I found. Throughout his youth Kuipers constructed dinosaur models in his parent’s basement. Using these models he filmed Infant Earth , a creation story documenting the formation of Earth’s life. Another project of his, Two Fa...