by Mindy Price
This past spring, Minnetrista was the fortunate recipient of six beautiful paintings by Indiana artists. With support from Lilly Endowment Inc., the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites (ISMHS) purchased more than 100 paintings and works on paper from the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) historic art collection. Developed between the 1890s and 1970s, these works of art were displayed in public schools that have since been closed. Rather than keep all of these pieces for their own permanent collection, ISMHS chose to offer works from this collection to select Indiana institutions at no charge.
From the list of offered artwork, Minnetrista selected a dozen pieces of interest and ranked them in order of preference. With several institutions vying for the same works of art, it was essential to explain how each one would complement the Minnetrista Museum Collection. After reviewing the applications, ISMHS awarded our museum six incredible pieces by four important Hoosier Impressionist painters.
Two of the most exciting pieces are oil paintings by Otto Stark (1859-1926). Likely painted while visiting his friends and fellow artists J. Ottis and Winnifred Brady Adams at their summer cottage in Leland, Michigan, Road in Woods is a vertical landscape featuring trees with vibrant foliage. Painted in 1904 from a reference photograph, Portrait of Frederick Douglass depicts the famed abolitionist who used his freedom from slavery to speak out about emancipation, voting rights, and equality. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) visited Muncie twice while campaigning for presidential candidates—once in 1880 for James Garfield and again in 1888 for Benjamin Harrison.
Before this new addition, Otto Stark was the only member of the Hoosier Group not represented in our collection. Now, we have two or more pieces by each of the five artists—J. Ottis Adams, William Forsyth, Richard B. Gruelle, T. C. Steele, and Otto Stark. Joining this impressive collection of artwork by the Hoosier Group are two additional paintings. An untitled watercolor depicting a tree-lined stream complements another recent donation of work by Richard B. Gruelle (1851-1914), and an oil painting titled Old Boat House, Winona by William Forsyth (1854-1935) allows us to showcase the artistic range from one of the founders of the Muncie Art School.
One of the Forsyth paintings previously acquired for our collection is a portrait of his student, Clifton Wheeler (1883-1953). Unfortunately, we did not have any examples of Wheeler’s work to complement this piece. By chance, the IPS historic art collection contained several of his untitled oil paintings that we could request, of which we were awarded two. Painted in 1941, the first is a double-sided painting featuring a green mountain landscape on one side and a snowy landscape on the other. The second one, painted in 1949, depicts the rolling hills of Carolina from Forneg Forge. Both present interesting display potential and allow us to look for influences from the Hoosier Group artists that he studied under and worked with during his career.
Minnetrista is very grateful to be the new home of these impressive examples of Hoosier Impressionism, and we cannot wait to share them with you!
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