Michigan and retrieve stones for the posts. He showed her how to build a wooden armature that could be moved higher as the layers of concrete dried. She later wrote in a letter: “The joy of being paid for having so much fun I have long remembered. The pleasure of mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow and straining sand from the beach for the concrete — I am sure my sculpture filled yard had its origins in the gateposts.”
Nohl was among a select group of women who attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1930s. This education, along with her world travels, exposed Nohl to ways of seeing that would forever color her singular style. The school itself was unique, conjoined to a major museum used regularly as a teaching tool. The Art Institute’s growing collection of modern art, as well as its collections of art from Africa, Oceana, Asia and the Americas, was available to the students. Beyond the museum, Chicago offered a visual smorgasbord. Nohl was enraptured by the displays of modern design at the 1933–34 “Century of Progress” Chicago World’s Fair and by the sculptures of Russian expatriate Alexander Archipenko, featured at the Katherine Kuh Gallery.
Nohl’s art history professor, the legendary Helen Gardner, introduced her students to her holistic view of the arts, illuminating for them the connections between modern art and the cultures that were, in part, its wellspring. She sent her students to view other collections, particularly those of Chicago’s Field Museum and the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, so that they might experience objects from ancient cultures — from tiny neolithic idols to Egyptian sarcophagi. Unlike many of her colleagues, Gardner did not consider culturally based objects to be outside the domain of fine art; she also fostered her students’ appreciation of the undervalued “minor” arts, such as textiles, pottery, metalwork, woodcarving and bookmaking.

After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1937 and a degree in art education two years later, Nohl was hopeful about finding a post in commercial illustration or the industrial arts in Chicago. However, during her job searches she met with dismissive comments: one potential employer criticized her work as “too sophisticated”; another stated that “outdoor advertising doesn’t hire girls.” She even interviewed with László Moholy-Nagy at the New Bauhaus School he had founded in Chicago in 1937, but he was seeking only students.

Like most women of her time hoping for a professional life in the arts, Nohl was steered into a conventional teaching career. With characteristically high spirits, she accepted a position in the Baltimore, Maryland, school system. There, she tried to inspire her young students with a heartfelt modern approach, noting in one of her journals, “Aim is not to teach students to be professional artists, but rather to learn how to express themselves.” Yet the job felt more like babysitting than an enriching engagement. Two years later, Nohl returned to Wisconsin. Torn between the work ethic her father had instilled in her and the desire to grow as an artist, she tackled a high school art position in Milwaukee, this time in a less-rigid program.

In the early 1940s, as the world grappled with the horrors of World War II, Nohl stayed focused on art and broadened her curriculum. She single-mindedly sought a life purified by art, yet she was oblivious to rigid notions about acceptable styles and arenas. Her modern viewpoint led her to value investigation over result, expression over message; her innovative curriculum discouraged nothing, even theater set and graphic design. And while for many American artists of the day, overtly social art was viewed as backward, Nohl happily complied with a Wisconsin scholastic initiative to integrate art and current affairs, encouraging her students to create Victory Garden posters and show support for the war effort with performances and visual displays. Nohl learned alongside her students as they explored new methods and materials, but teaching still failed to fulfill her as an artist. Years before, Nohl’s parents had made the beloved cottage on Lake Michigan into their year-round home. In 1941, in a move that would be a turning point in her creative life, Nohl decided to live there as well.

Several years before, Nohl’s brother Max, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, had developed state-of-the-art underwater dive equipment. Wearing his helium-oxygen breathing apparatus, he made national headlines with record-breaking dives in Lake Michigan. Although Nohl was admittedly envious of