Faythe Levine

Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink

2017 - ongoing

 

I learned about Charlotte Partridge (1882-1975) and Miriam Frink (1892-1978) in 2017 while doing research for Iris Haussler who had an upcoming exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, where I had just become the assistant curator. After spending time with their papers housed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries’ Archives Department my interest was piqued. The combination of their roles as founders and co-directors of the Layton School of art, the Wisconsin WPA, numerous community groups, and their partnered relationship of over 50-years is a mostly untold story. Their papers are dense with Wisconsin milestones and queer history, with many contradictions to unravel and parse out.

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With online resources I created a bulked out timeline of their combined lives. In order to establish their undervalued roles I began updating Partridge’s existing wikipedia page to encompass a more wide vision of her impact. Frink, often working in the background, didn't receive as much attention and will be next on my list. 

 

In 2022, I traveled to Milwaukee to spend a week with the papers looking specifically at correspondence between Miriam to Charlotte and their photographs. I’ll be thinking through the scope of where I want to go with my research and am excited to talk with others interested in their history or working on scholarship surrounding their lives.