13. Ox-Bow Artist Colony

Location: North end of Park Street, Saugatuck

Date: 1873-today

This art school, located in one of the Midwest’s most-admired natural landscapes, was founded as an outgrowth of the French rebellion against academic painting in the 1870s. The new and radical “Impressionist” artist sought to paint a visual impression of a moment with visible brush strokes and special attention given to capturing natural light.

The school had its beginnings in summer of 1910 at the James Bandle family home on Saugatuck’s Holland Street where daughter Elizabeth “Bessie” Bandle, a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, invited her artist friends to relax and paint. During the summers of 1912 and 1913, the artists lodged at the Park House at 888 Holland Street. In 1914, the artists moved to the nearly-abandoned Shriver’s Riverside Hotel. The isolated site, on the Kalamazoo River oxbow, offered pristine landscapes dotted with quaint, rustic buildings. It was also a perfect escape from summers in a hot, crowded and dirty city.

What began as a casual gathering of like-minded artists was incorporated into the Ox-Bow Summer School of Painting in 1921. Many of the early artists who came to Ox-Bow, including John C. Johansen, John W. Norton, Frederick F. Fursman, Walter M. Clute, Thomas Eddy Tallmadge, Elsa Ulbricht, and Edgar and Isobel Rupprecht, were of national prominence. They were followed by contemporary artists of equal rank, including Albert Krehbiel, Wallace Kirkland, Ed Pasche, Bill Oldendorf, LeRoy Neiman, Shel Silverstein and Claus Oldenburg. Television pioneer Burr Tillstrom, creator of “Kukla, Fran and Ollie”, was a frequent Ox-Bow personage.

Honoring its beginnings as an outgrowth of “bohemian” urban culture, the school has continued as a place of artistic innovation and diversity. Today’s Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency is affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, allowing students to earn academic credits.