In case you somehow, improbably, impossibly missed it, the current Milwaukee Public Museum will close its doors at 800 W. Wells St. on January 3, 2027. Then, sometime in spring 2027, the new Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin will open its doors at 1310 N. 6th St. and officially take MPM’s place.
A handful of MPM dioramas and items have already made the move to NCMW. (Most will be moved after MPM closes.) And now, an iconic exterior MPM feature has moved, too.
The 40-foot-tall bronze Algonkian Indian and Whistling Swan sculpture, which graced MPM’s Wells Street entrance since the 1960s, was recently deinstalled and reinstalled on the west side of NCMW’s parking structure, overlooking a plaza.
You can watch video of the process below, courtesy of MPM:
“The sculpture was created by internationally recognized sculptor Marshall Fredericks, the artist behind Detroit’s beloved Spirit of Detroit statue,” a press release explains. “The sculpture depicts a kneeling Native American figure gazing up at four swans in flight, with a bow in hand. The design is meant to symbolize the freedom and beauty of nature in the Great Lakes region.”
Here’s more from MPM:
The piece was commissioned in the early 1960s by Eschweiler & Eschweiler, the architecture firm behind MPM’s original building; the sculpture was designed to fit both the purpose and the architecture of the museum. It depicts a kneeling Native American figure—bow drawn but without an arrow—gazing up at four swans in flight above him. A nearby plaque reads: “Symbolizing freedom and beauty of nature in the Great Lakes area.”
And yep, you did the math correctly. You have less than four months to visit MPM before it closes. Sigh.
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