Mary L. Nohl Fund’s 23rd Fellowship Cycle Opens
Lynden, in collaboration with the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, announces the twenty-third cycle of the prestigious Mary L. Nohl Fellowship Program for Individual Visual Artists. The program, funded by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund, provides unrestricted funds for artists to create new work or complete work in progress. It is a central pillar of Lynden’s support for artists.
Five fellowships will be awarded in 2026: two for Established Artists ($20,000 each) and three for Emerging Artists ($10,000 each). Each artist will also receive a $5,000 professional development/production budget. The fellowship period will begin in January 2026 when the new fellows are announced and will conclude in June 2027 with an exhibition at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University. The eighteen-month fellowship period will include professional development opportunities such as studio visits from curators and artists outside the area and occasional public programs. The exhibition, and the Fellowship program, will be documented in a catalogue that includes a critical essay on each artist’s work. The catalogue will be distributed locally, regionally, and nationally.
The Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship program also includes a Suitcase Export Fund for exporting work by local artists beyond the four-county area. The 2025 fund is currently open, and the electronic application and guidelines are available at lyndensculpturegarden.org/nohl. Awards of up to $1,500 help with shipping work and transporting artists to exhibitions and screenings further afield.
The Nohl Fellowship program is open to practicing artists residing in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties. One hundred and thirty-one fellowships have been awarded since the program began in 2003. The fellowships encourage visual artists who are making, or will make, significant contributions to their fields to stay in Greater Milwaukee; to evolve as artistic practitioners; and to contribute to our community through the creation of art. We define art broadly. As Daniel Minter, an artist-in-residence at Lynden, observes, art can be a conduit for culture, a way to show people how to solve everyday problems, to create navigation systems to “an alternative understanding about the world,” and to “recognize and access ancestral resources for individual and collective struggle.” Black, Indigenous, and other artists of color, and those representing diverse cultural perspectives, are strongly urged to apply.
Applications and guidelines for the 23rd cycle of the fellowship program will be available on the web at lyndensculpturegarden.org/nohl beginning at 11 am on Tuesday, September 2, 2025. Completed applications are due no later than Thursday, October 2, 2025, at 5 pm. If you are unable to access the electronic application, you may receive application materials and complete eligibility requirements by contacting Polly Morris at (414) 446-8794 or by e-mail at pmorris@lyndensculpturegarden.org. Awards will be announced in January 2026.
A virtual workshop and three virtual Q&A sessions will be offered to help applicants better understand the application and the jurying process. These programs are free and open to new applicants as well as those who have applied in the past. If you are unable to attend these sessions on Zoom, they will be recorded and posted here: https://www.lyndensculpturegarden.org/content/mary-l-nohl-fund-fellowship-program
Polly Morris, executive director of the Lynden Sculpture Garden, who administers the fellowship program, will be joined by current Nohl Fellows Michael Newhall and Open Kitchen (Rudy Medina + Alyx Christensen) for the informal, online workshop:
- Thursday, September 4, 2025, 6-7:30 pm.
Morris will also offer three virtual Q&A sessions:
- Thursday, September 11, 2025, 12 noon-1 pm.
- Saturday, September 20, 2025, 10-11 am.
- Thursday, September 25, 2025, 6:30-7:30 pm.
The workshop and information sessions are free, but you must register in advance. Register for the workshop and Q&A session here: https://www.lyndensculpturegarden.org/webform/nohl-workshop
Artist Mary L. Nohl of Fox Point, Wisconsin, died in December 2001 at the age of 87. She left a $9.6 million bequest to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Her fund supports local visual arts and education programs, keeping her passion for the visual arts alive in the community.
The five fellows selected in the 2025 cycle of the competition—Michelle Grabner and Michael Newhall in the Established Artist category; and Emerging Artists Sarah Ballard, Margaret Griffin, and Open Kitchen (Rudy Medina + Alyx Christensen)–will open an exhibition of their work at the Haggerty Museum of Art in June 2026.
The Greater Milwaukee Foundation is Wisconsin’s largest community foundation and was among the first established in the world. For more than a century, the Foundation has been at the heart of the civic community, helping donors achieve the greatest philanthropic impact, elevating the work of changemakers across neighborhoods, and bringing people and organizations together to help our region thrive. Racial equity is the Foundation’s North Star, guiding its investments and strategies for social and economic change. Leveraging generations of community knowledge, cross-sector partnerships, and more than $1 billion in financial assets, the Foundation is committed to reimagining philanthropy, recentering communities, and remaking systems to transform our region into a Milwaukee for all.
The Lynden Sculpture Garden works with artists, educators, students, and communities to create, support, and share experiences at the intersection of art, nature, and culture. We operate as a laboratory, continually re-imagining Lynden’s landscape, collection, and place in the community through exhibitions, performances, residencies, and hands-on education programs. We develop programs in collaboration with those we serve, focusing on place-based K-12 education; CALL & RESPONSE, an artist-driven initiative that celebrates the radical Black imagination as a means to re-examine the past and imagine a better future; and HOME, a space of leading, coming together, and celebrating refugees through art, food, and performance. Artists are at the center of everything we do. The Nohl Fellowship, the Suitcase Export Fund, and the Ruth Arts Mary L Nohl Alumni Award are three key programs that support artists.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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