Found: Fred Smith Concrete Museum, Phillips, WI

Found: Fred Smith's Concrete Museum, Phillips, Wis.
(portrait of Fred Smith with Kerosene Wagon and Paul Bunyan statues),
published by L. L. Cook Co., Milwaukee, WI,  circa 1950s.

Found: Fred Smith's Concrete Museum, Phillips, Wis. (farming with horses statues),
published by L. L. Cook Co., Milwaukee, WI,  circa 1950s.

Curator Lisa Stone and Jim Zanzi's 1991 book, The Art of Fred Smith, quotes Fred Smith (1886-1976), a self-taught artist, fiddle player, Christmas Tree/Ginseng farmer, and Rock Garden Tavern owner, as saying:"It's gotta be in ya to do it." That says it all and is something we try to convey to students when we teach. Smith worked on his Concrete Museum (see above real photo postcards) from 1948 until 1964 when a stroke hit him just after finishing his Budweiser Clydesdale tableau. Smith landed in a rest home and lived another decade. Stone and Zanzi presented Fred Smith's Wisconsin Concrete Park rationale in the below passage. The WCP remains an attraction in Phillips with active programs and efforts to preserve Smith's creation.

"An outdoor museum comprised of over 200 embellished concrete sculptures built by Fred Smith (1886-1976), a self-taught artists and retired lumberjack. Within this installation of monuments Smith created a cohesive panorama of history, legend, and his immense imagination. Conceived and created in his senior years, Smith built the Wisconsin Concrete Park as a gift "...for all the American people everywhere. They need something like this." (p. iii)