Other People’s Collections – Ray Yoshida

We stopped at the John Michael Kohler Art Preserve in Sheboygan on our way to our Door County vacation this year. The Preserve preserves artist built environments that can’t be preserved in situ. It includes the work of outsider artists as well as the environments of two artists who were also collectors. Ray Yoshida collected the work of trained artists, outsider artists, and folk artists as well other objects and ephemera. The Kohler Arts Center acquired most of the contents of his apartment when he died and they’ve mostly been in storage since then. The items are now displayed on the second floor of the Arts Preserve looking much as they did in Yoshida’s Chicago apartment.

I could have spent a day just looking at this collection – these photos just give a glimpse of it. A return trip for another look as well as a closer look at Lenore Tawney’s studio collection is definitely in order!