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The lakefront home of Mary Nohl, complete with all her art, passed to Kohler Foundation upon her death at the age of 87 in December 2001. During Mary's long and productive lifetime, she filled her life, her home, and her yard with an incredible array of art. Reclusive in her later years, Mary was often called the "witch of Fox Point" and legends grew about the artist as she embellished her home and filled her yard with concrete sculptures. She worked in all media and her large body of work includes painting, sculpture, jewelry, drawings, assemblages, and more. A large collection of her work was donated to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center during her lifetime, but much remains to be documented and preserved.
The Mary Nohl site has been listed as one of the ten most endangered properties in Wisconsin (2005) by the Wisconsin Preservation Trust. The site has also been recognized on the Wisconsin Registry of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places. It has also been nominated as a Milwaukee County Landmark. The site is not open to the public at this time and is currently a private residence.
Kohler Foundation continues to study, catalog, and conserve Mary Nohl's vast collection of art. Through a fellowship in Material Culture at the University of Wisconsin (Art History Department), a graduate student often assists in this process. Mary Nohl's life and work have provided the subject matter for three master's thesis’s (Bard College, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and University of Wisconsin-Madison).
Although Mary lived frugally, she was able to contribute $11.3 million to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation to provide continuing support for visual arts and art education programs in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. An artist as well as a supporter of the arts, she has made a lasting impression.
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