Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden, Wisconsin

James A. Tellen populated the woods around his family’s summer cottage south of Sheboygan with mythic and religious figures and models of buildings at various scales, made out of concrete and stone. He started this work in 1942, and continued until his death in 1957. The site is now preserved and owned by the Kohler Arts Center, based in Sheboygan, which uses some of the buildings to house an artist residence program. It is one of a number of well-preserved and elaborate Catholic grottos, and self-built figurative concrete sculpture parks in the state, rescued by the Kohler Foundation, a philanthropic outgrowth of the Kohler Company, maker of plumbing fixtures and generators, also based in Sheboygan.