Redlin Art Center

Terry Redlin grew up in Watertown and, after a career in commercial art, turned to painting the wildlife and rural Americana scenes that made him famous. As his popularity soared through widely sold prints, he wanted his original paintings kept together and returned to the community that shaped him, and so the art center was built to house them.

That intention gives the place its warmth. It is not a commercial gallery but a gift, offered free to visitors, and it stands as a point of pride for Watertown and the whole Glacial Lakes region. Walking through it, you sense both the artist's affection for his roots and the community's affection for him in return.

Redlin painted a particular and deeply American world, one of marshes and prairies, migrating geese and ducks, deer at the wood's edge, weathered barns and farmhouses, country stores, small-town churches, and the machines and pastimes of rural life. Light is his signature, the golden glow of a low sun, a lamplit window, a campfire, a moonlit snow.

The scenes are steeped in nostalgia for a rural America of the recent past, and that emotional pull is a large part of why his work became so beloved. Whether or not the world he painted was ever quite so warm, the feeling is genuine, and his paintings speak to a longing for home, season, and the outdoors that resonates far beyond the plains.

Millions of people know Redlin's images from prints, calendars, and puzzles, but the art center is where the actual paintings live, and seeing them in person is a revelation. The originals carry a depth of color and a subtlety of light that reproductions flatten, and standing before them you notice brushwork and detail a print can never show.

The building itself matches the ambition of the collection, a handsome, dignified structure with gracious galleries and grounds, designed as a fitting home for a life's work. Together the setting and the originals make a visit feel less like stopping at a museum and more like being welcomed into an artist's world.

As an indoor gallery, the Redlin Art Center is a fine destination in any weather, and it makes an especially welcome refuge in the cold and wind of a plains winter, though its schedule tightens in the off season, so it pays to check the days and hours before visiting.

Summer brings the most travelers through the Glacial Lakes region and is the easiest time to combine the center with the area's lakes and outdoor attractions. Spring and fall are quieter and pleasant, and any season is a good one to step inside and spend time with Redlin's glowing, unhurried world.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.