John Michael Kohler Arts Center

The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is a not-for-profit art museum operated by the Sheboygan Arts Foundation, Inc., located in downtown Sheboygan, Wisconsin, United States. The original house at the facility is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the John Michael Kohler House. The Sheboygan Arts Foundation, Inc. was created in 1959 and its first board included Mrs. Walter J. Kohler III. In 1966, the Kohler Foundation donated the Kohler family homestead to the Sheboygan Arts Foundation, Inc. for the use of the arts center. The center was established in 1967 and was expanded to beginning in 2000. It reaches 160,000 people each year and an estimated four million since its inception. The center has ten galleries, a theater, performance and meeting spaces, studio-classrooms, an all ages/all abilities activity space known as The ARTery, an on-site retail shop called ARTspace, and a cafe named ARTcafe. The center also has an adjunct site called ARTspace at the Shops at Woodlake, which is an exhibition space and shop in the nearby village of Kohler. Programming at the center includes dance performances, art exhibits, festivals, music performances, and theatre; an arts based preschool, classes, demonstrations, lectures, and tours. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center has an arts/industry program, the primary component of which is a residency program at Kohler Company. Artists have the opportunity to spend two to six months creating works of art utilizing industrial materials and equipment. The center is known for its artist-created bathrooms.