When the Milwaukee Brewers take the field against the Tampa Bay Rays for the opening game of the 122nd World Series tonight, the players will be fighting for far more than just the iconic, sterling silver Commissioner’s Trophy and eternal baseball glory. Beyond the diamond, a high-culture rivalry has added an unexpected and priceless masterpiece to the line, ensuring that the Fall Classic will be keenly watched by art historians and curators just as closely as by die-hard sports fans.
In a high-stakes display of civic pride and institutional camaraderie, the two teams’ local art museums have entered into a friendly yet intensely prestigious wager. The Milwaukee Art Museum—situated just four miles east of the Brewers’ home grounds at American Family Field—and the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg—located just over a mile west of the Rays’ Tropicana Field—have agreed to a championship stakes bet. When the dust settles and a champion is crowned, the winning city’s museum will earn the coveted right to temporarily borrow a magnificent Impressionist Monet painting from the losing institution’s permanent collection.
The cultural exchange hanging in the balance involves two stunning works by French painter Claude Monet, both capturing the atmospheric fog and iconic architecture of London in the early years of the 20th century.
The Milwaukee Art Museum is putting its prized possession on the line: Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect, painted around 1903. According to the museum’s documentation, this piece holds a special place in the hearts of local art enthusiasts as the one and only Monet in the institution’s collection. Currently on view as a visitor favorite, the painting carries a rich provenance, having been bequeathed to the museum by Mrs. Albert T. Friedmann following her death in 1950. It was part of a generous trove of more than 40 objects she left to enrich the cultural landscape of Milwaukee. The canvas belongs to a famous series Monet painted during his extended visits to the British capital, showcasing a foggy, impressionistic view of a bridge crossing the historic River Thames, complete with industrial smokestacks lingering in the background.
On the other side of the wager, the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, is offering up its own crown jewel: Houses of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London, painted in 1904. This masterwork is similarly cherished by the Florida museum. While it is normally housed in the MFA’s primary collection gallery, it is currently on temporary display in an upstairs gallery while its usual exhibition space undergoes installation work.
Stanton Thomas, curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, noted the unique opportunity the exhibition presents for traveling sports fans. “For visiting Brewers fans, it might be their only chance to see it,” Thomas said in a statement regarding the temporary display. Painted just a year after the Milwaukee canvas, the St. Petersburg painting shares a similar thematic and visual focus, capturing the iconic British government buildings along the Thames shrouded in the thick, hazy atmosphere that so captivated Monet during his early 20th-century plein-air painting campaigns in London.
While this World Series wager has captured national attention, it is not the first time the Milwaukee Art Museum has leveraged its world-class collection on the outcome of a major professional sports championship. The institution has a storied history of engaging in high-profile art and sports crossover bets with rival cities.
Thirteen years ago, in 2011, when the Green Bay Packers faced the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh entered into a remarkably similar loan agreement dictated by the gridiron. Following a hard-fought game that ended with a 31-25 victory for the Packers—featuring then-Packers and current Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers—the stakes were collected. True to their word, the Carnegie Museum of Art sent Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s luminous painting Bathers With Crab northward. The masterpiece traveled to Milwaukee, where it was put on display for three months as a centerpiece for the museum’s major exhibition, “Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper.”
Reflecting on that historic sports bet, local cultural observers have noted the tantalizing possibilities of future rematches. Should the Steelers and the Packers ever meet on the NFL’s grandest stage once again, and should the historic “Steel Curtain” defense prevail over Green Bay, the Carnegie Museum of Art might finally get its chance to temporarily secure the Milwaukee Art Museum’s treasured 1877 Gustave Caillebotte masterpiece, Boating on the Yerres.
For now, however, the attention of both the sports and art worlds remains squarely focused on the unfolding World Series matchup between Milwaukee and Tampa Bay. As the first pitch is thrown tonight, players on the field will chase immortality, while curators in both Wisconsin and Florida wait anxiously to see which Monet will be packing its bags for a temporary relocation.
