In the 1920s and 1930s, monumental grottoes sprang up along the roadsides of the American Midwest, becoming a folk-art phenomenon. These outdoor sculptural marvels were colorful and dazzling, made of concrete embellished with a head-spinning array of materials, including seashells, broken perfume bottles, reflectors, marbles, colored glass, and geodes. These assemblages became popular ways for attracting visitors to the grounds of Catholic churches throughout the region—but they also cropped up on the front lawns of everyday people.
Midwest grottoes, as they are known today, were many things at once: pilgrimage site, folk art, immigrant invention, patriotic expression, roadside attraction, and celebration of local geology. For over a century, these regional grottoes have inspired artists and the faithful who visit these places of communal prayer, care, and creativity.
This kaleidoscopic, ornate and long-overlooked art form is now having a major moment of reconsideration, thanks to a fascinating new exhibition entitled “A Beautiful Experience: The Midwest Grotto Tradition” at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) in Sheboygan, WI (on view through May 10, 2026).
Madeline Buol, (ca. 1948). John Michael Kohler Arts Center Collection, gift of Robert and Lisa Klauer and Kohler Foundation Inc. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
“The grotto and the grotto aesthetic are really important to a ton of artists in our collection,” said Laura Bickford, collections curator at JMKAC, who curated the exhibition along with assistant curator Chava Krivchenia. JMKAC is the only institution in the world focused on the preservation of artist-built environments, which are often large-scale and outdoors. “These grottoes are an essential starting point aesthetically, culturally, and philosophically.”
The eye-opening exhibition brings together a grotto by Madeline Buol, one of the only women working in the tradition, rosettes (which are smaller fragments) from important grotto sites, along with ephemera, along with contemporary responses to the grotto tradition by artists E. Saffronia Downing and Stephanie H. Shih.
Religious Roadside Attractions
Grottoes have roots in European pagan traditions going back centuries. “They were based around natural landscapes like caves or reflective pools, which were places for prayer or reflection,” explained Krivchenia.
Over time, however, people began to bring objects with religious or spiritual significance to these spaces, creating shrines, frequented by visitors for moments of prayer. These shrines ultimately became a common aspect of Catholic tradition.
Midwest grottoes emerged in communities of German Catholic immigrants. “These immigrants included those hoping to become pastors, too, as there was a seminary right outside of Milwaukee,” Krivchenia explained.
Father Mathias H. Wernerus, Holy Ghost Park (the Dickeyville Grotto), Dickeyville, WI, ca. 1920–1931. Photo: John Michael Kohler Arts Center Artist Archives.
Priests often spearheaded these Midwest grottoes with support from their community, and “A Beautiful Experience” includes rosettes and ephemera from several of such locations. One of the earliest and most influential grottoes in the Midwest was the vision of Paul Dobberstein, a German immigrant to Milwaukee, who enrolled at the city’s St. Francis Seminary in the 1890s.
After recovering from a bad case of pneumonia, the priest pledged to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary. He began assembling rocks and boulders at his parish. Dobberstein and numerous volunteers together constructed the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa. Reaching back to European traditions in which grottoes were often adorned with shells and rocks, Dobberstein’s brings together a massive array of semiprecious stones and minerals, including petrified wood, malachite, azurite, agates, geodes, jasper, quartz, topaz, calcite, stalactites, and stalagmites. It sprawls over acres, making the largest-known grotto of its kind.
“These grottos are interesting from a material culture perspective and also geology. There are a lot of locally occurring stones that are specific to Midwest geology and time and glacial activity,” Krivchenia added.
Father Mathias H. Wernerus, Holy Ghost Park (the Dickeyville Grotto), Dickeyville, WI ca. 1920–1931. Photo: John Michael Kohler Arts Center Artist Archives.
Dobberstein’s sprawling grotto inspired a flurry of grotto-making across the region in its wake. In Dickeyville, WI, a priest by the name of Father Mathias Wernerus was instrumental in the construction of the Dickeyville Grotto and Shrines between 1924 and 1930. While Dobberstein’s grotto centered on organic materials, the Dickeyville Grotto is a testament to the industry of the region, and includes car reflectors, broken porcelain heirlooms, materials gifted by parishioners, and a bevy of gearshift knobs donated by Henry Ford to the shrine. The Dickeyville Grotto also embodies the unique blending of patriotism and religion that the grottoes unified. Two columns, one on either side of the grotto’s entrance, bear the words “Religion” and “Patriotism” along with a mosaic of an American flag.
“These grottoes are rooted in religious tradition, so you see imagery that has to do with the Stations of the Cross or biblical stories,” said Krivchenia “But, at the same time, German immigrants and Catholics were trying to show that they could have loyalty and commitment to the Church as well as to the U.S. at a time when that was questioned.”
The title for the exhibition “A Beautiful Experience” comes from a brochure advertising the Dickeyville Grotto, as well. While the Catholic diocese sanctioned the construction of the grotto, the funding and maintenance costs had to be self-funded. Much of that came from donations from roadside visitors in an era when interstate highways were a new and exciting development. “Building these grottoes coincided with the rise of the automobile and highways and this idea of taking a road trip, as well as the widespread availability of concrete,” explained Krivchenia.
A Woman in the Spotlight
Anchoring the exhibition is the work of Madeline Buol, one of the few known women builders in the Midwest grotto tradition. “A Beautiful Experience” marks the first-ever public presentation of her monumental 13-piece grotto made at her home in Dubuque, Iowa.
The artist, who was born in 1902, was a devout Catholic who ran a beauty and barber shop with her husband Frank in Dubuque, Iowa. Inspired by other grottoes in the Upper Midwest, she began building a grotto in her yard in 1946, which she worked on, in various capacities, for 15 years. After her death, Buol’s grotto was acquired by JMKAC, which conducted extensive conservation on her works.
Madeline Buol in 1952. Courtesy of the John Michael Kohler Art Center.
“We know that Buol visited both the Dickeyville Grotto and the Grotto Redemption in Iowa, and was really inspired by these acts of faith,” said Krivchenia.
“Buol was not a recognized artist nor working among other women grotto builders, yet she dedicated years to creating monumental works in her own yard,” added Bickford.
Buol’s grotto sculptures range from two feet to over eight feet tall and combine both industrial and organic materials in a unique synthesis. Her works nod to the Dickeyville Grotto, including a smaller replication of the Dickeyville Grotto’s patriotic entrance. Her grotto also includes sculptural forms in the shape of rosary beads.
“A Beautiful Experience” offers a look inside Buol’s unique artistic approaches and reflects decorative trends as well as her own life and home.
“Madeline Buol wrote to the Fathers at the other grottoes for material and technical advice. We know through writing and her autobiography that she went through trial-and-error processes,” said Krivchenia. “The fact that these are in as good a condition as they are, after spending multiple decades in Midwestern winters shows the ingenuity and technique that she was able to cultivate.”
Madeline Buol, untitled (center grotto), ca. 1948; concrete, stones (including quartz, granite, and metamorphic and igneous rocks from glacial outwash), marbles, shells, glass, ceramic, metal, and plastic. John Michael Kohler Arts Center Collection, gift of Robert and Lisa Klauer and Kohler Foundation Inc. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
While JKMAC focuses on the conservation of such artist-built environments, here the institution is careful to present the work so that the techniques Buol experimented with are more visible, including areas where she added shells as supports in the concrete, as well as baking tins she used to create small additions during the cold winter months.
“What I appreciate the most about her work is that you’re always noticing these moments of care and humor,” said Krivchenia. “She had a huge affinity for seashells. Throughout her sculptures, you’ll notice shells with holes in them. In the Midwest, there was a button factory that would punch out the buttons from shells and then throw the rest of the shells back in the river. So it’s just one of those moments where you’re seeing industrial design or household kind of trends and histories alongside this individual style and aesthetics.”
Stephanie H. Shih, , 2025; mixed media. Courtesy of the artist. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
The exhibition also features works by contemporary artists E. Saffronia Downing and Stephanie H. Shih inspired by Midwest grottoes. Shih has created an elaborate porcelain grotto based on the Toy Building, a pagoda-style building that stood in downtown Milwaukee from 1913 to 1939, and housed a buffet, a billiards hall, and more. The building was a testament to a now-vanished Chinese immigrant population in the city. In conceptualizing the work, the artist crowdsourced tchotchkes relating to the Chinese diaspora from the public; these now adorn the building’s roof and serve as an imaginary grotto for these unknown immigrants. Downing, meanwhile, looks at grottoes through the specificity of the Midwestern geology, through sourcing clay and material from the region to create her sculptures, and offering deeper insights into the natural history of the region.
The curators see a lasting and continually important role for grottoes over a hundred years after the folk art first emerged in the Midwest. “The creation of grottoes is a way of place-making and creating a space for community to come together for reflection and belonging,” said Krivchenia, “but also to experience some kind of awe.”
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
