Edgewood College, Kohler Foundation Celebrate Wis. “Painted Forest”
Celebration of Outsider Art Kicks Off Madison’s Gallery Night

Madison, Wis. – Art lovers will celebrate the fascinating world of “outsider art” and its self-taught creators on October 1 in Madison and on October 2 in Valton, Wis., to mark the Kohler Foundation’s gift to Edgewood College of the Wisconsin folk-art masterpiece known as the “Painted Forest.”

According to Wisconsin Trails (May 1984), the “Painted Forest” may be “the closest thing to Michelangelo’s monumental Sistine Chapel fresco that any folk artist has ever executed.”

Between 1897 and 1899, Ernest Hupeden, an itinerant, self-taught German painter, covered the interior of a simple frame building in Valton with a remarkable series of murals, many of which depict the initiation rituals of the Modern Woodmen of America, who used the building as their lodge. Hupeden recreated these rituals in his own imagination, setting them amid visionary forest vistas that gave the site its name.

In 1980-81 the Kohler Foundation purchased the “Painted Forest,” which had gradually fallen into disuse, and in 1980-81 restored the building and murals. The Foundation entrusted the site to the Historical Society of the Upper Baraboo Valley, which cared for it for many years. Now, in October 2004, the Kohler Foundation is entrusting the “Painted Forest” to Edgewood College, to continue the site’s role in educating students and visitors and to preserve this unique outsider art as a Wisconsin treasure.

Schedule of Events

October 1, 2004, Madison
Art lovers can start their Gallery Night wanderings with a lecture and reception on Outsider Art at Edgewood College, then move on to nearby Monroe St. galleries.

Friday, October 1, 4 p.m., Edgewood College, 1000 Edgewood College Drive, Madison. Free. “Exploring the Diverse World of Outsider Art,” by Brooke Davis Anderson, curator and director of the Contemporary Center of the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton, chair of the Wisconsin Arts Board, will be present, as will Terri Yoho, executive director of the Kohler Foundation, and Daniel J. Carey, president of Edgewood College. Reception to follow. Call 608-663-4861.

Anderson’s slide-lecture will feature many outsider artists, with a special focus on those with works in Wisconsin, such as Fred Smith’s “Wisconsin Concrete Park” in Phillips, Nick Engelbert’s “Grandview” near Hollandale, and Ernest Hupeden’s “Painted Forest” in Valton. The latter—Hupeden’s remarkable series of murals covering the walls and ceiling of a wood frame building in Valton—is the focus of the October weekend, celebrating the Kohler Foundation’s gift of the “Painted Forest” to Edgewood College.

October 2, 2004, Valton, Wis.
Saturday, October 2, 2:00 p.m., at the “Painted Forest” site, Valton, Sauk County, Wis. Free. Dedication and gifting ceremony, followed by Amish pie and ice-cream social, painting workshops for children and adults, and tours of the “Painted Forest” and its remarkable murals. Call 608-663-4861