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USA
Midwest
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Black River, WI
Woodland Sculpture Garden - James Tellen
1880-1957
Concrete environment
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Information:
Built: 1942 - 1957
Restored by the Kohler Foundation, this site encompasses a garden and buildings filled with concrete sculptures.
Beginning in 1942 and continuing until his death in 1957, James A. Tellen created over 30 historic, religious and mythic figures within the woods surrounding his family's summer cottage in the Black River area of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. An assembly of both life-size and miniature characters, the sculptures are arranged in lifelike tableaux, using the natural environment as a kind of ready-made stage set, with the actors turned to stone. Collectively, they take on a magical, almost surrealistic relationship with their natural surroundings -- and provide a window to the artist's soul.
It is believed that Tellen was born in 1880 in the town of Houghton in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Adopted early on, Tellen moved to the small city of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, with his new family. He attended parochial school in Sheboygan until the eighth grade and later attributed his strong religious beliefs to his Catholic upbringing.
For most of his life, Tellen worked in a furniture factory where he painted stripes, curlicues and other fine decorative detailing. In his spare time, he experimented with oil painting, then turned to other mediums. When slowdowns at the factory during and following the Depression reduced Tellen's work schedule, it allowed him to pursue his woodcarving hobby and attend six years of industrial art classes at a local night school. Tellen's family summer cottage served as a showcase for his wood and metal pieces.
At age 62, while Tellen was hospitalized and recovering from a illness, cast concrete statues displayed in a churchyard across the street inspired him. During the following winter months, Tellen began major figures by making a clay model, a plaster mold, and a concrete casting of the head. In summers at the site, he mounted the heads on metal armatures with wire mesh skeletons and completed the bodies with dishpan loads of cement.
According to most reports, Tellen's first major work in concrete began with "Fallen Log," his 65-foot-long trompe l'oeil masterpiece of weathered logs, an immense bear, two clambering bear cubs, and the dramatic figures of a Native American man, woman and child.
These first sculptures -- like most of Tellen's work -- are distinguished by their surprising degree of realism. Strongly influenced by the popular notion that representation skill is the true sign of artistic ability, Tellen was obsessed with creating a faithful portrait of his subjects. Struggling in particular with the difficulties of anatomy, he worked and reworked the features of many of his major figures until they finally met his exacting standards for realism. Because he reportedly could not bring himself to destroy any of his own works, Tellen often buried the remnants of his many early attempts in his yard, enjoying the idea that, at some time in the future, his eerie collection of cement heads might be unexpectedly unearthed.
Tellen passed away in 1957, leaving behind a forest environment described as "one of the finest exhibits of outdoor art in the state."
Kohler Foundation
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Bibliography:
"Detour Art—Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Folk Art Environments Coast to Coast, Art and Photographs from the Collection of Kelly Ludwig" by Kelly Ludwig, Kansas City Star Books, 2007.
On DVD - Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations, "Takin' it to the Lakes," KCPT, Kansas City Public Television, 1997-2001.
"Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Environments" by Roger Manley and Mark Sloan, Aperture, New York, 1997.
"Sublime Spaces & Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists," by Leslie Umberger, Erika Doss, Ruth DeYoung Kohler, Lisa Stone, and Jane Bianco, published by John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.
"Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art—A guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources" by Betty-Carol Sellen with Cynthia J. Johnson, McFarland & Company, 2000.
"American Self-Taught Art: An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,319 Capsule Biographies" by Florence Laffal and Julius Laffal, 2003.
"Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations Coast to Coast Travel-o-Pedia" by Randy Mason, et. al., Kansas City Star Books, 2009. |
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