If a hotel can be said to be synonymous with a city, it is perhaps The Pfister Hotel which is most connected to Milwaukee. Opened in 1893, The Pfister was undoubtedly intended to demonstrate the sense of quality, the abundant technology and generous hospitality of Milwaukee to the rest of the world. For more than one hundred years the hotel has held to that vision. Its 1965 expansion and 1993 renovation, undertaken through the leadership of owners Ben and Steve Marcus, have kept it at the forefront of American hotels.

One of the exceptional reflections of the vision of the hotel’s founder, Guido Pfister, was the art collection. Drawn from some of the most prominent artists working both internationally and throughout America, the art collection represented the commitment to both quality and the comfort of the visitors.

Dating generally to the years surrounding the hotel’s founding, the art collection is an exceptional example of late Victorian taste in America. A number of the artists in the collection remain well known today. For example, Europeans such as Adolph Schreyer’s The Wallachian Post-Carrier is in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum along with the works of Fromentin and Goodwin. Also of interest is the range of the collection, from a fairly evenhanded representation of German, French, Italian and American talents of the day to some of the most respected artists then working in Milwaukee such as Louis Mayer and Richard Lorenz. It must be said that the owners or their agents kept within the fairly conventional taste for historical and genre subjects, pleasant landscapes and figural compositions which did not depart too much from the expectations of their clientele. But it is precisely these reasons -- both its breadth and conventionality -- that the collection acts as such a telling barometer of the taste of its time.

Today the collection is a unique asset providing an extraordinary insight into the taste of the turn-of-the-century and contributing to the inviting surroundings that only the best hotels can provide. The owners are to be congratulated not only for preserving this vital legacy of the past, but for employing it to continue to bring the best of Milwaukee to the world.