Hollandale, Wisconsin - Nick Engelbert's Grandview Folk Art Environment

Nick Engelbert created his first concrete sculpture in the 1930s, reportedly while recovering from a sprained ankle. Family members recall that Engelbert was rather quiet about his sculpture production, but, by 1950, his entire yard was transformed into an artistic landscape of over 40 concrete sculptures. Many were arranged in elaborate settings with lush colorful garden beds designed and tended by his wife Katherine. Engelbert also decorated the exterior of his clapboard farmhouse with a colorful mosaic of concrete, embellished with stones, shells, glass shards, and fragments of ceramic dinnerware and porcelain figurines.

The surrounding landscape of rolling hills and bucolic farmland enhanced the aura. It was for this "grand view" that Engelbert named his sculpted panorama. [Ricky Rolfsmeyer, 04/12/2004]