One man’s photographs inspire exhibit celebrating Milwaukee family business and its connection to Wisconsin’s rich Lake Michigan commercial fishing world.
Tom Kutchera’s grandfather founded Empire Fish Company in Milwaukee in 1913. Kutchera not only carried on the family business, he enjoyed taking photos of colleagues and would post those he considered the best on a pinboard at the employee entrance.
For 11 of those years, mostly summers and holidays, Tom’s son Joe Kutchera worked with him. Joe says the people working there were like family.
When his dad died in 2016, Joe Kutchera and his siblings displayed some of Tom’s photos at the funeral.
One of the people there was Naomi Shersty, who happens to teach photography at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. She was blown away by the images.
Shersty offered to digitize all of Tom Kutchera’s photographs. That project resulted in a book Faces of a Fish Empire.
Joe Kutchera says it celebrates his dad’s creativity and history of the family business.
But creativity didn’t end there.
Kutchera reached out to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, WI.
“I loved the portraits, and I could see why it was a very good Milwaukee story, but at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum we cast a wider net. So, I challenged Joe early on. How does the viewer connect with your family and these fish mongers,” says Executive Director Kevin Cullen.
Cullen and Kutchera teamed up to co-curate a special exhibit Lake to Plate: Local Fishing Families & Foodways. It features Tom Kutchera's photographs, artifacts and the work of professional photographer Jim Legault.
He began photographing Wisconsin fishermen and fishing families in the 1960s and continues documenting Lake Michigan’s commercial fishing industry today.
The exhibit chronicles 50 years of commercial fishermen, fish cutters, smokehouses, delivery drivers and retail clerks — including oral histories — and the enduring traditions they represent.
Kevin Cullen points to one example: a family fish company based in Baileys Harbor (Door County) that has been around since 1967.
“Dennis Hickey is here with his blond hair and then as you get over here you actually see him in the warehouse processing many years later,” Cullen says.
Joe Kutchera says that’s the idea behind the thread of fishing families that runs through the exhibit.
“Looking at the multigenerational businesses and understanding their connection to the lake and how they’re bringing us the food that we eat, which is why we begin the exhibit with the question: ‘Who are the people who bring us the food that we eat?’ And then to look at some of these small businesses that we are encouraging visitors to support as shown on this map here,” Kutchera says.
The exhibit also highlights women on the fishing scene, including the legacy of Elaine Johnson and Gretna Johns. The cousins were the first women in Door County to commercially fish perch. Thanks to them, the fish became popular in restaurants in their hometown, Liberty Grove.
“While it was challenging, and they were not often allowed on boats and even today there’s some pushback there. But women in the commercial industry, we have a whole panel just about that,” Cullen says.
He’s learned people continue to be inspired by the challenge of a good catch, including his 12-year-old son.
“My son is currently right outside fishing in the Manitowoc River. Wherever we travel, he’s inspired to go out and look for another fish,” Cullen says.
Joe Kutchera says he’s learned a tremendous amount in putting this exhibit together.
“The fish companies in the south, many of them have shut down, Empire is still a market today. But I learned how the industry is really coming back in the northern half of Lake Michigan. So even though the industry has for the most part disappeared from the southern half, the story in the northern half is quite different,” Kutchera says.
He's also heartened by Cullen’s son’s connection to fishing. “Because this is the story of the families who’s job it was to connect the lake to the plate and today we’re so disconnected, but to come and reflect on who those people are and bring us closer to the source … to bring us closer to the lake,” Kutchera says.
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