”Milwaukee Lakefront,” depicted in Max Margius Fernekes’ hand-colored woodcut, is the name of a 3.1 mile stretch of pathway named after the city it resides in, running alongside Lake Michigan. The view looks north toward the water tower located at the eastern end of North Avenue. Below the pathway lay the tracks of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad, now a main thoroughfare.
Fernekes’ work was a labor of love for the city he was born and raised in, as well as for Wisconsin itself, and he often depicted scenes of the everyday life and architecture that he was familiar with. Subsequently, his work recorded the changes that took place between the Depression, war, and decades of recovery. In this early woodcut, the viewer can observe a quieter time before modernization brought a forest of skyscrapers, and cars did not yet dominate midwestern travel.