James Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden

The James Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden is a remarkable outdoor environment created by a self-taught folk artist over several decades on a wooded plot west of the city. Tellen, a factory worker with no formal artistic training, carved and painted hundreds of figures that he arranged along paths through the trees — a personal vision of the world that reads as both naive and deeply felt.

The garden is accessible through the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, which manages the site and provides visiting information. The setting — a quiet woodland with carved figures appearing unexpectedly around every turn — is affecting in a way that most formal sculpture parks are not. It's the kind of place that stays with you.

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A story
James Tellen was a retired factory worker who began carving and painting figures in his woodland plot in the 1940s. By the time he died in 1967, the garden contained hundreds of pieces — biblical scenes, animals, folk characters — arranged along woodland paths around his former summer cottage. The site survived because neighbours recognised its value and it eventually came under the protection of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.