Ruth DeYoung Kohler Timeline

Born to Herbert V. Kohler, Sr. and Ruth DeYoung Kohler

Courtesy of Kohler Archives.

Graduates from Ferry Hall School, Lake Forest, Illinois

Courtesy of Kohler Archives.

Pursues further studies at the Banff School of Fine Arts, Canada

Studies at University of Hamburg, Germany

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), July 31, 1961, page 8

Receives a BA in art and art history from Smith College

Teaches art in Beloit, Wisconsin, public schools

Ruth and her father in the Swiss Alps

Ruth DeYoung Kohler and Herbert Vollrath Kohler, Sr., 1963. Photo courtesy of Kohler Archives.

Pursues further studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison

Joins the faculty at the University of Alberta-Calgary, Canada, where she initiated the printmaking program

Spends over a year in Spain working as an artist and exploring the region’s vernacular and Paleolithic art

Returns to Kohler, Wisconsin, to care for her father and begins volunteering at the Arts Center

Preschool for 3- to 5-year-old children is established

Preschool, 1968.

Invited to submit art to the Arts Center’s first exhibition, Paper ’68

The puppet, made entirely of paper, is the work of Ruth Kohler. The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), November 20, 1967, page 20

Appointed Assistant Director of John Michael Kohler Arts Center

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), July 19, 1968, page 15

Capital campaign to build first Arts Center expansion launches

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), August 22, 1968, page 4

Visits Fred Smith’s Wisconsin Concrete Park and Rock Garden Tavern in Philips, Wisconsin

Fred Smith with Lincoln-Todd Monument, Wisconsin Concrete Park, (site view, c. 1962), Phillips, WI, 1948–64. Photo: Robert Amft, courtesy of Robert Amft Archive, Friends of Fred Smith, Inc.

Begins serving on the Kohler Foundation, Inc., board

First Summer Theatre season

Summer Theatre, "The Fantasticks." Photo courtesy of Jon Doll.

Readers Theatre for Children founded

New wing of the Arts Center opens

First Sidewalk Arts Festival (later renamed Outdoor Arts Festival, then Midsummer Festival of the Arts)

First annual Sidewalk Arts Festival, July 1971

Appointed Director of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), March 20, 1972, page 3

Begins negotiating details of an artist’s residency in the Kohler Co. factory with her brother, Herbert V. Kohler, Jr.

Appointed by Governor Patrick Lucey to serve on newly formed Wisconsin Arts Board

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), December 4, 1973, page 7

The Plastic Earth opens—one of the largest contemporary ceramics exhibitions in the United States

The Plastic Earth installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 1973.

Elected chair of the Wisconsin Arts Board

Ceramicists Tom LaDousa (seated, left) and Jack Earl (right) given pilot residency in Kohler Co.’s Pottery, marking the beginning of the Arts/Industry program.

Arts Center hosts Industry and the Artist/Craftsman conference

Owing to Ruth’s advocacy, Kohler Foundation, Inc., acquires Fred Smith’s Wisconsin Concrete Park

Elected for a three-year term on the Beloit College Board of Trustees

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), June 10, 1978, page 4

Arts Center receives works by Fred Smith when Kohler Foundation, Inc. donates Fred Smith’s Wisconsin Concrete Park to Price County

Visits Herman Rusch’s Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden in Cochrane, Wisconsin

Herman Rusch, Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden and Museum (site view, This for the Birds and Arches, 2006), Cochrane, WI, 1952–79. Photo: Michelle (Shelly) R. Nooyen.

Footlights performance series is launched

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), September 20, 1982, page 15

Visits the Milwaukee home of artist Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

Marie Von Bruenchenhein, Ruth DeYoung Kohler, and Phil Martin of the Wisconsin Arts Board at the Von Bruenchenhein home, not long after Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's death in 1983. Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via USA TODAY NETWORK.

Arts Center becomes a collecting institution with the acquisition of works from Eugene Von Bruenchenhein’s estate

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, untitled (bone chair), c. 1965–70; fowl bones, paint, glue; 7 x 4 1/8 x 4 1/8 in. John Michael Kohler Arts Center Collection. Photo: Rich Maciejewski, 2016.

Named a fellow by Beloit College

Awarded honorary doctorate in humane letters, Lakeland College, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), May 16, 1984, page 13

Voyages, the Arts Center’s first themed exhibition series, opens

Voyages installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 1986.

Named a fellow at Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Madison, Wisconsin

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), October 21, 1989, page 7

Becomes a member of Milwaukee Art Museum’s Museum Council

Named Honorary Member of the Council, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), April 29, 1990, page 22

Named advisory board member of SPACES Archive, Los Angeles

Becomes an honorary member of the College of Fellows of the American Crafts Council

“New Arts Center for a New Century” fundraising campaign for Arts Center’s second expansion begins

Arts Center commissions six artists to transform the restrooms into works of art

Matt Nolen, The Social History of Architecture (detail, west wing men's washroom), 1999; vitreous china and glaze. John Michael Kohler Arts Center Collection. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Over 150 sculptures from Nek Chand’s Rock Garden of Chandigarh gifted to the Arts Center by Kohler Foundation, Inc.

Nek Chand at the Rock Garden (site view, 1994), Chandigarh, India, 1965–2015. Photo: Maggie Jones Maizels, courtesy of Raw Vision.

Presented with Wisconsin’s Governor’s Award for the Arts

The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), November 21, 1997, page 41

Connecting Communities program is established

Receives a Visionaries! award from the American Craft Museum

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), October 17, 1999, page 25

Tenure as president of Kohler Foundation, Inc., board begins

Arts Center expansion is completed

Birds-eye view of the Arts Center Building and Grounds with the sculpture Keepsake by Patrick Dougherty, July 2001

Receives the Smith Medal from Smith College

Awarded honorary doctorate from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design

Arts Center takes on stewardship of Mary Nohl’s life’s work

Receives Lifetime Achievement Award at Fourth International Cast Iron Conference, Princeton, New Jersey

Receives 2003 Visionary Leadership Award from Intuit

Left to right: Ruth Kohler of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center accepting Intuit’s 2003 Visionary Leadership Award from Intuit President Cleo Wilson and board member Lisa Stone.

Awarded honorary doctorate from University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), May 8, 2005, page 22

Planning begins for the Art Preserve, a space designed to house the Arts Center’s artist-built environments

Receives Wisconsin Visual Arts Lifetime Achievement Award

Sublime Spaces & Visionary Worlds exhibition begins and catalogue is published

Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists (2007) book cover

Awarded honorary doctorate from Edgewood College, Madison, Wisconsin

In its coverage of the American Story exhibition, New York Times article describes the Arts Center “a gem of a museum”

First Big Sheboygan Shebang performed before a sold-out crowd

The Big Sheboygan Shebang, August 14, 2009.

Arts Center receives Mary Nohl estate, gifted by Kohler Foundation, Inc.

Receives honorary doctorate from Alverno College

40th anniversary of the Arts/Industry program

Arts/Industry 40th Anniversary Bash, June, 2014.

Receives American Folk Art Museum Visionary Award

Steps away from directorship of Arts Center and named director emerita

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), February 5, 2016, page A1

The Road Less Traveled series, commemorating Arts Center’s 50th anniversary, begins

The Road Less Traveled conference on artist-built environments takes place

Construction of the Art Preserve begins

Three artist-created washrooms are commissioned for the Art Preserve

Detail of Joy Feasley and Paul Swenbeck's Listen, the Snow Is Falling washroom installation at the Art Preserve, 2021.

Arts Center, working with Kohler Foundation, Inc., acquires an additional 8,300 objects from Eugene Von Bruenchenhein’s estate

The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), August 3, 2019, page A1

Dies at her home in Kohler, Wisconsin, at the age of 79

The Art Preserve, Ruth’s vision of a center devoted to artist-built environments, opens to the public

Photo by Durston Saylor