Gallery Partnerships

The James Watrous Gallery staff actively seeks partnerships with other nonprofit organizations in the arts, sciences, and humanities. We currently have ongoing partnerships with the Madison Children’s Museum, the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, and Wisconsin Visual Artists. 

The Madison Children's Museum, located just off the Capitol square in downtown Madison, and the James Watrous Gallery collaborate to offer programs for children that are both educational and fun. The mission of the Children's Museum is to connect children with their families, their communities and the world beyond through discovery learning and creative play. Our partnership creates programs for children that further this mission through utilization of both our gallery staff and exhibitions and the staff and facilities of the Children's Museum.

Along with the Museum of Wisconsin Art and Wisconsin Visual Artists, the Wisconsin Academy created the Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Awards. These awards honor individuals and organizations that have contributed to the wealth of artistic creativity in our state and region. The founders of the WVALAA believe the awards and website will serve to inform and educate the public about Wisconsin's rich art history and contemporary visual arts culture. WVALAA are for the future—for the artists, patrons, supporters, teachers, authors, collectors, and appreciators of art.

The James Watrous Gallery staff has worked with several other organizations to create arts exhibitions and related programs. These organizations include:

• The Wisconsin Historical Society
• The Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at UW–Madison
• The Wisconsin Book Festival, a program of the Wisconsin Humanities Council
• The Cooperative Children’s Book Center at UW–Madison
• The Eye Research Institute at UW–Madison

From 2008 through 2011, The James Watrous Gallery was a proud recipient of an annual "Partnership Agreement Award" through the Wisconsin Arts Board. The Wisconsin Arts Board nurtures creativity, cultivates expression, promotes the arts, supports the arts in education, stimulates community and economic development and serves as a resource for people of every culture and heritage. The partnership was designed to further both the mission of the Arts Board and those of the partner organization. Due to a cut in state funding for the Wisconsin Arts Board, the partnership awards are currently tabled.

The Steenbock Gallery had its beginning in the 1980s as the Wisconsin Academy Gallery located in our offices on Old University Avenue. The Academy Gallery (now called the Steenbock Gallery) earned a reputation for high quality exhibitions by Wisconsin artists as well as a venue for interdisciplinary curated exhibitions related to various Academy programs. Today exhibitions at the Wisconsin Academy's Steenbock Gallery are curated by the artists of the Center for Photography at Madison (CPM), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of photography and the photographic arts in the greater Madison area. For more information about CPM, please call 608-287-1182 or send email to: info@cpmad.org. Visit the Steenbock Gallery Blog to read about current CPM exhibitions and topics about photography.