Michelle Grabner

Biography

Michelle Grabner was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1962. She received a BFA in Painting and
Drawing in 1984 and an MA in Art History from the University of Wisconsin in 1987. Additionally,
she received an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University in 1990. Grabner
has been the subject of many solo exhibitions, including at Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield
Hills, MI (1999); Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT (2011); Museum of Contemporary
Art Cleveland, Cleveland, OH (2013); Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN (2015); the
Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL (2018); and the Alice Austen House, Staten Island, NY
(2022). She has also participated in various group exhibitions, including 25 Americans: Paintings
in the 90s, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI (1995); Milwaukee Love, University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI (1999); Strange Days, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago, IL (2004); Eldorado: with Gaylen Gerber, Musee d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean,
Luxembourg (2006); Borderland Abstraction, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE
(2010); Gray Matters: Art en grisaille, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2017); and
Kaleidoscopic Tensions, Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, WI (2019). She has also curated
several shows including An American City, FRONT Triennial, Cleveland, OH (2018). She was
awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (2021). Grabner currently lives and works in Milwaukee, WI.

Bio updated as of 2023.