SALON

Field and Com pany department store, “ONE IMPORTANT PURPOSE SERVED BY LAST 28 East Washington Street, in . The exhibition displayed 253 pieces by YEAR’S SALON WAS THE DISCLOSURE OF SO 132 artists. Portrait artist Wayman Adams MUCH MORE ARTISTIC TALENT AMONG THE shipped four canvases from his New York SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THAN City studio. All four o f the living members had works displayed ANY ONE HAD DREAMED OF.” along with pieces from noted artists Charles W. Dahlgreen, Frank V. Dudley, Frederick M . Polley, J. W ill Vawter, and The top prize, $500, went to Eugene Sav­ Hoosier Salon exhibition left no doubt Clifton Wheeler. Nearly 30 percent o f the age, originally from Covington, Indiana, that it would become an annual event. accepted entries were from female artists for “outstanding picture of the exhibition.” Hoosier novelist Meredith Nichol­ and more than two hundred submissions Three cartoons from Little Orphan Annie, son wrote the foreword to the following were rejected. Hundreds of people from a newspaper com ic strip that debuted in year’s annual exhibition catalog, saying: Indiana attended the private reception Sat­ 1924, were entered in the 1925 exhibition “ One important purpose served by last urday night before the exhibition opened. by cartoonist Harold Gray. In addition, year’s Salon was the disclosure o f so much Many o f the Hoosier guests arrived on the there were cartoon entries from Gaar W il­ more artistic talent among the sons and morning and afternoon trains. liams, Fontaine Finch, and Chic Jackson. daughters o f Indiana than any one had Steele was on hand with his wife, Sel­ Williams walked o ff with the inaugural dreamed of.” The 1926 exhibition was ma. Initially reluctant to come, Steele was prize in the cartoon category. open to sculpture for the first time as well convinced to make the journey from his W ith titles such as Spirit o f Brown as paintings. Entries arrived from Indiana Brown County studio by King’s repeated County, Foots o f the Bear Waller, Late artists’ studios in New York City, Santa Fe, pleas. “Steele seemed to be reticent go to Winter at Broadripple, and Snapdragons, it Atlanta, Saint Louis, Long Beach, M in­ the trouble o f traveling to Chicago,” said is safe to assume that traditional Indiana neapolis, Seattle, San Diego, New Orleans, Rachel Berenson Perry, a noted Indiana art landscapes and still lifes were represented and Washington, D.C., as well as from historian. “It was a feather in Hoosier Sa­ in the initial exhibition, but other titles towns throughout Indiana, Michigan, and lon’s cap to have him there. By then other such as C liffs o f Cornwall and Copenhagen . artists really looked up to him and felt he Harbor indicate Hoosier artists were work­ , one o f the first was [the] person with the most influence ing beyond the state’s borders. African American artists to participate in and the most notoriety.” A Chicago Daily News art critic ap­ the Hoosier Salon, was included in the Steele was recognized for the best pic­ plauded the artists for highlighting the 1926 exhibition. A pupil o f Stark at Man­ ture painted by a man over sixty. Wayman natural beauty o f their state, and said: “ In ual Training High School in , Adams earned a $200 merit award for a Indiana, practically every one is said to Scott won a scholarship to the Academie portrait o f , which was have a flair for writing, and it would seem Julian in and subsequently estab­ judged best portrait in oil. Forsyth won that some o f this desire for self-expression lished a reputation for his art overseas. $100 for a still life called Glory o f Autumn. has overflowered into painting, for there Elmer E. Tafflinger and Gustave Baumann is probably no other state had their first entries in 1926 as well. In all that could show as many and 339 pieces by 149 artists were included in such a high average o f practi­ the exhibition. cally unknown painters.” The The internationally known sculp­ unqualified success o f the 1925 tor , originally from Terre

Opposite: Indianapolis artist Bob Meyers’s watercolor titled Last Night from the Hoosier Salon’s eighty-eighth annual exhibition. Left: The Bals-Wocher mansion at 951 North Delaware Street in Indianapolis that served as the Hoosier Salon s headquarters from 1974 until it was sold in 1978.

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