(gentle music) - [Narrator] In a city of industry, two women fostered a creative movement that shaped generations.

- They really helped lay the foundation work for bringing modernism here to Milwaukee.

- [Narrator] Partners in life and in purpose, they redefined what an art school could be.

- [Seth] And I don't think people were as interested in sharing queer stories or women-led stories, despite queer and women-led stories leading the charge for modernism in Milwaukee.

- [Narrator] And their legacy still colors Milwaukee's canvas today.

This is the story of Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink first met in 1915 at the Milwaukee Downer Women's College.

- At the time, Miriam Frink was teaching English.

Charlotte Partridge was a teacher of the art department.

She eventually became the head of the fine arts department, where Charlotte Partridge established one of the first art therapy programs in the United States.

- [Narrator] The women quickly became friends, roommates, and later, romantic partners.

(jazzy music) - Historically, women's colleges were ways for women to establish queer relationships at the time, especially in a safe environment.

- [Josie] Like, the pictures, you could tell there was a tenderness between them.

- [Narrator] By 1920, Partridge felt constrained by the narrow opportunities at Milwaukee Downer College.

She began exploring the idea of opening her own art school.

- [Charlotte] I'm getting a little tired of teaching just girls.

I believe in co-education.

I haven't any use for segregation of any kind.

And then I realized that that's one of the things that was bothering me, was I was getting a little stale at Downer.

Also, I had reached the limit that could be done.

- And so Charlotte Partridge, with Miriam Frink, and they approached the Layton Art Gallery board, and then proposed, "I would like to start an art school in the basement."

- [Charlotte] They gave us the ground floor of the Layton Art Gallery, rent-free.

At that time, the basement didn't have any hot water, didn't have but one washroom, had no electricity.

They said, "Go ahead and do what you please."

So, we started.

That's why it was called the Layton School of Art.

- Oh, they started it in 1920, and it started out just as classes, not as a degree program, and sort of grew and evolved over time.

(jazzy music) - [Narrator] The women founders broke free from the rigid educational norms of their time.

They championed art as a tool for community engagement and built a curriculum that blended drama, music, literature, and even psychology.

- It was important for them to have a well-rounded education.

A lot of art education in the early 20th century was all the copying of masterworks.

The Layton School of Art, I say that their teaching ethos is defined by co-education, so men and women being in the same classroom.

Men and women doing life studies of nude models together?

Unheard of at the time.

Next part was interest in civic engagement, and Charlotte Partridge was consciously thinking about, how can artists be part of the workforce?

They established graphic design courses in the very beginning of the school.

So showing that artists are valuable people in the workforce.

- And the approach to teaching that Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink took was very much influenced by what was happening in Bauhaus school in Germany.

- [Narrator] The Bauhaus was a short-lived German art school that significantly impacted modern art and design.

Partridge visited the school in the 1930s, around the time she led Wisconsin's Works Project Administration.

- There was an interest in modernism, an interest in abstraction, which, again, was kind of this new language and this new visual language.

That was, you know, a huge shift.

- [Narrator] In the early years of the school, the students came from all walks of life.

- [Charlotte] There were people from the public museum who needed some drawing.

Newspaper photographers.

They felt there was a need and something more understanding about composition.

Cooks, who wanted to have some recreation.

Some public school teachers, lots of them.

And several dentists, two doctors, and some of their wives.

- [Narrator] In 1922, while leading the Layton School of Art, Partridge was appointed director and curator of the Layton Art Gallery, where she revolutionized the way art was displayed and curated.

- Charlotte Partridge modernized the gallery by bringing and acquiring new artworks from Europe at the time that were avant-garde.

She took the railings away.

She wanted people to be able to stand up close.

Charlotte Partridge was one of the first people to bring Wisconsin painters and Wisconsin artists to the Layton Art Gallery.

They quite literally helped establish the art scene as we know it today in Milwaukee.

- [Narrator] Enrollment at the Art School nearly doubled after the passing of the GI Bill.

In 1951, the school moved into a new building to accommodate the influx of students.

The construction marked a bold shift in Milwaukee's cultural center from the river to the lakefront.

- It was on the top of the bluff on Prospect, looking out over Lake Michigan.

It was a very modernist building.

It was way ahead of its time.

And I'm sure there were a lot of Milwaukeeans who were scandalized because it wasn't at all in keeping with traditional architectural aesthetics, but it was very much in keeping with their ideas about, you know, the Bauhaus tradition.

(jazzy music) - [Narrator] By 1954, as the school grew in stature and earned accreditation, the Board of Trustees forced Partridge and Frink to retire.

- The reason that Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink got kicked out was it was deemed that two women could not run a school of the caliber that the Layton School of Art had ran.

- It was a tough time to be women.

It was a tough time to be women in a leadership position.

If they replaced them with a man because it was decided that two women shouldn't be leading this college, you know, that's a little bit of history that needs to be erased.

- [Narrator] The Layton School of Art's lakefront building was demolished in 1970 to make way for a proposed freeway, which was ultimately never constructed.

- [Josie] Well, the school went through different stages of closing their doors and reopening with a lot of the same faculty involved, but it ended up moving to different locations.

It was never really as financially stable after that as it had been under Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink.

- [Narrator] The Layton School of Art closed in 1974, but that same year, seven faculty members founded its successor, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, better known as MIAD.

The legacies of Partridge and Frink live on here in Milwaukee's Third Ward.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, but we call it MIAD.

- [Seth] Now we can kind of say, yep, two lesbians founded the Layton School of Art, which is now the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

- [Narrator] In their later chapters, Partridge and Frink remained fixtures in the community, serving on boards, helping to build housing for elderly women, and organizing neighborhood improvement projects.

- They still had their fingers in everything.

They were trying to influence the city beyond just the arts.

- [Narrator] Charlotte Partridge died on February 25th, 1975, at the age of 92.

Miriam Frink died a little more than two years later on August 23rd, 1977.

She was 85.

Their lifelong commitment to art now speaks through the work of others.

- I think it's emotional to think about their legacy today, because it is cool that it's so clearly reflected in the student body here at MIAD.

So the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, whether they know it or not, is mostly queer fem women.

Queer people have always been the catalyst for what's new and what's upcoming in America.

Their legacy still is lasting.

Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink just helped establish Milwaukee's art scene in general.

- I think it's incredibly important to know about a really diverse history, not just what was in the mainstream textbooks, because it's those individual people's lives that, like, for me, for instance, you know, being a queer woman, knowing about other women before me who have accomplished great things and who have helped make our country what it is, it's definitely one of those things that I think has helped me grow as a person and be more confident and feel like I stand on the shoulders of these other amazing human beings that have come before me.

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