Vesterheim lends objects to institutions around the country. These have included the Mingei International Museum, San Diego, California; Haydon Art Center, Lincoln, Nebraska; Ellis Island, New York; Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; and the Apron Museum in Iuka, Mississippi.
Vesterheim's Objects on Loan
The locations of all the Vesterheim’s exhibits and objects that currently on loan are listed below.
Current Locations
Traveling Exhibit: Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890-1980
Vesterheim has loaned six objects for this traveling exhibit, including a carved drinking horn by Lars Kinsarvik, a plate and chair painted with rosemaling by Per Lysne, a carved chair by Erik Kr. Johnsen, a platter painted with rosemaling by Violet Christophersen, and a tapestry called Animal Kingdom woven by Minnesota sisters Pauline Fjelde and Thomane Fjelde Hansen.
This major international loan exhibition is the first to present the extensive exchange of design ideas between the United States and the Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—between 1890 and 1980. The exhibit is co-organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has traveled to Norway, Sweden, and California.
View the exhibit at:
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin March 24 – July 23, 2023
Nordic Heritage Museum
Seattle, Washington
This five-year loan to their core exhibition includes a Luther College pennant, a political button, and a bygdelag badge.
Livsreise Norwegian Heritage Center
Stoughton, Wisconsin
The exhibit Innovators and Inventors, opening at Livsreise in April 2023, celebrates the creativity and ingenuity of Norwegian immigrants and their descendants in America.
Also, objects and historical images related to stories of Norwegians in Wisconsin are included in the center’s core exhibit.
Nordic Northwest
Portland, Oregon
The exhibit Tattoo: Identity through Ink, will be open at Nordic Northwest from April 1 – July 1, 2023. This traveling exhibit from Vesterheim tells the story of tattoos and explores the ways individual and group identities are formed, reinforced, and celebrated through tattoos. Of course, there is a Scandinavian connection–with celebrated artists like Norwegian Johan Frederik Knudsen and Norwegian-American Amund Dietzel, the question of whether or not Vikings had tattoos, and the rise of a whole modern Neo-Nordic style of tattooing.