feature image: Keith Haring, Dog Hoop. Courtesy of the Trimper Gallery.
Submitted
The Rahr-West Art Museum is pleased to present an Open House on Sunday, February 15, 2026, to celebrate the reopening of the Vilas-Rahr Mansion and the closing of the Keith Haring: Subway Drawings exhibit.
Open House Schedule
- 11:00 am – 4:00 pm | Explore new Mansion exhibits and the Keith Haring: Subway Drawings exhibit. New Scavenger Hunts for 2026 will be available.
- 11:30 am | Mansion Tour with Assistant Director/Curator Diana Bolander
- 12:00 – 2:00 pm | Quick Create: Keith Haring Buttons
- 2:00 pm | Gallery Walk of Keith Haring: Subway Drawings with Alex Trimper
Quick Create: Keith Haring Buttons: 12:00-2:00 pm
Guests of all ages are invited to create a button inspired by Keith Haring’s iconography and Pop Shop objects.
Gallery Walk: Alex Trimper at 2:00 pm
Alex Trimper is the President and Founder of Trimper Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Trimper Gallery represents a carefully curated roster of emerging and established artists across painting, photography, and sculpture. Alex will discuss the Haring Subway drawings and his plans for exhibiting them.
Exhibits
Keith Haring: Subway Drawings examines the public art of one of the biggest art names of the past 50 years. The collection of over 40 public art pieces and associated prints comes from a five-year period when Haring roamed New York City subways, chalk in hand, and became famous for his spontaneous graffiti-like drawings. Keith Haring: Subway Drawings is organized by the Trimper Gallery of Greenwich, Connecticut.
More is More: A Salon-Style Installation: This exhibit in the Victorian West Gallery features art from our collection that dates between 1830 and 1930 from floor to ceiling, in the traditional salon style.
Charles West’s Travel Scrapbooks presents watercolors by and the travel scrapbooks of Manitowoc Shipbuilding President Charles Cameron West. Scrapbooks date from the 1910-1930 and feature snapshots, ephemera, and travel photography from the cruises and tours of the Mediterranean, Europe, the West Indies, and northern Africa.
Marks on Stone: Lithographic Prints from the Collection of the Rahr-West Art Museum features examples of lithography from the museum collection, including the work of modern masters such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Moore alongside a lithography stone and print by Skip Wallen.
Of Symbols and Meaning explores common symbols in art in works of art and objects from the museum’s collection. Common objects like apples, flowers, and dogs often convey an underlying meaning when used as a device in artwork.
Contemplating Spaces brings together works that examine interiors, exteriors, and the thresholds that connect them. Collectively, in the context of the historic Vilas-Rahr Mansion, the works explore how constructed spaces hold memory, frame experience, and mediate the relations between inner and outer worlds.
The events and the exhibits are free and open to the public.
The Rahr-West Art Museum is admission-free. Find hours and visitor information at rahrwestartmuseum.org. The Rahr-West Art Museum is a department of the City of Manitowoc.
For More information
Diana Bolander, Curator/Assistant Director, 920-686-3092, dbolander@manitowoc.org