About Debra Brehmer

Debra Brehmer is the owner and director of Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, founded in 2008. Since its inception, the gallery has supported artists in all stages of their careers with a spirited and diverse program. Brehmer is also the founder and administrator of a related project called On the Wing, which, through non-profit fiscal receivership, recently organized a major exhibition of Wisconsin prison art called Art Against the Odds, which is currently traveling.

Brehmer is an art historian (MA, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) who has curated numerous exhibitions and has written many exhibition catalog essays for institutions including the Milwaukee Art Museum, Museum of Wisconsin Art, the estate of Vivian Maier, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. She is currently a regular contributor to Hyperallergic, an international on-line art publication based in Brooklyn. Her essays have been published in several anthologies, including Fierce: Essays by and about Dauntless Women (Nauset Press, Brooklyn, 2018), and Write It: A Process Approach to College Essays (Kendall Hunt, 2020). She was the founder, publisher and editor of Art Muscle Magazine (1986-1996) and taught art history and critical writing at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Brehmer serves on exhibition committees for the Jewish Museum Milwaukee and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. She was awarded the Wisconsin Achievement Award in Critical Writing in 2022 and was given a Mayoral Proclamation for service to the art community by the City of Milwaukee in 2023.