Chicago filmmaker Madeline Tripp Tourtelot founded Penninsula School of Art in Fish Creek in the mid-1960’s. The Peninsula School of Art was once a seasonal fine art school with two barn-like studios in a field of wildflowers. Currently, the year-round facility serves 2,000 students of all ages.

As a young woman, Tourtelot spent summers taking painting workshops from Art Institute of Chicago instructors on the porch of the historic White Gull Inn in Fish Creek. Her passion for art blossomed and later fostered the encouragement of creative expression in others. Early in her career she also became a filmmaker of note, working with experimental composer/ musician Harry Partch on films like Windsong (1958).