Art Review: Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wis.

I’d never been in Sheboygan or, for that matter, Wisconsin, but, flying from Albuquerque to Chicago recently, I decided to take the plunge and visit what I learned is the Malibu of the Midwest. This small, handsome city is on Lake Michigan, big, blue, and beautiful as well as the Great Lakes’ surfing mecca. I knew Sheboygan as the home of the Chordettes — in my babyhood, everyone could sing “Mr. Sandman” and “Lollipop” — and of the intriguing Kohler Arts Center. Kohler, as in the Kohler Company, based since 1873 in Sheboygan and renowned for high-quality, high-design bath and kitchen fixtures.

The Kohler Arts Center is named for John Michael Kohler, the Austrian immigrant who founded the company, still family-run. The arts center started in 1967 in the patriarch’s mansion in the center of Sheboygan as a community art gallery and also a venue for lectures, concerts, theater, artists in residence, and America’s first arts-based preschool. The company wanted its employees, their families, and the city to enjoy the arts, and surfing wouldn’t do.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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I’d never been in Sheboygan or, for that matter, Wisconsin, but, flying from Albuquerque to Chicago recently, I decided to take the plunge and visit what I learned is the Malibu of the Midwest. This small, handsome city is on Lake Michigan, big, blue, and beautiful as well as the Great Lakes’ surfing mecca. I knew Sheboygan as the home of the Chordettes — in my babyhood, everyone could sing “Mr. Sandman” and “Lollipop” — and of the intriguing Kohler Arts Center. Kohler, as in the Kohler Company, based since 1873 in Sheboygan and renowned for high-quality, high-design bath and kitchen fixtures.

The Kohler Arts Center is named for John Michael Kohler, the Austrian immigrant who founded the company, still family-run. The arts center started in 1967 in the patriarch’s mansion in the center of Sheboygan as a community art gallery and also a venue for lectures, concerts, theater, artists in residence, and America’s first arts-based preschool. The company wanted its employees, their families, and the city to enjoy the arts, and surfing wouldn’t do.