A BOLD MOVE WAS MADE by a GROUP of INDIANAPOLIS ART LOVERS Dues Were Collected

A BOLD MOVE WAS MADE BY A GROUP OF INDIANAPOLIS ART LOVERS dues were collected. At its height, in 1931, IN THE FALL OF 1927. LED BY NEW YORK CITY RESIDENT AND INDIA it had twenty-two members, most of them NAPOLIS NATIVE MARY QUINN SULLIVAN, THEY RESOLVED TO “GAM women. A main goal of the Gamboliers was BLE” ON CONTEMPORARY ART. THE GAMBOLIERS, AS THEY CALLED * “not to be too serious or pretentious,” THEMSELVES,TOOK A RISK ON MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART admitting up front that it “expects to ISTS WHOSE REPUTATIONS WERE STILL IN THE MAKING AND WHOSE make mistakes in its experiment.” The WORKS WERE NOT YET ATTRACTING MAJOR COLLECTORS OR MUSEUM group’s name itself, the Gamboliers, evokes PURCHASING COMMITTEES. THE GAMBLE PAID OFF. BY 1934, WHEN THE conviviality and playfulness. As it phoneti GROUP DISBANDED, WORKS BY EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN MODERN cally echoes “gamble,” the word “gambol” ISTS HAD MADE THEIR WAY TO INDIANAPOLIS AND, SUBSEQUENTLY AS means to jump or skip about in play. GIFTS, INTO THE COLLECTION OF THE INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART. The term “gambolier” gained renewed prevalence due to a book published in When the Gamboliers began their played an important role in championing 1927 by poet Carl Sandburg. Titled An risky mission, the names Georges Braque, living artists, whose work had little appeal American Songbag, it was a compilation of Henri Matisse, and Amedeo Modigliani to wealthy male collectors who generally American songs and ballads that Sandburg were not so much revered as ridiculed. preferred old master paintings and had the had gathered while traveling through the Detractors viewed these artists as radicals deep pockets to pay for them. The Gam United States. Prohibition notwithstand whose works were at best ill-fated and boliers’ efforts on behalf of modern art are ing, one o f the most popular songs “Son of flawed, and at worst debased and morally linked closely to the broader institutional a Gambolier,” derived from a Scottish or damaging. Such views were rooted in a history of the John Herron Art Institute, Irish drinking ballad, contains the refrain: now legendary 1913 show organized in known since 1970 as the Indianapolis “Like every jolly fellow, I takes my whiskey New York City, the International Exhibi Museum of Art, and to the reception of clear,/For I’m a rambling rake of poverty, tion of Modern Art, better known as the modern and contemporary art in America and the son o f a gambolier.” Armory Show for its location in the Sixty- in general. As museum director Wilbur The Gamboliers charged Sullivan with ninth Regiment Armory. For the first time, Peat wrote of them in 1930: “The Gambo making the purchases, largely because she a large American audience was introduced liers are taking part in one o f our greatest resided in New York and traveled regularly to new trends in art, sparking a lively, sports— collecting contemporary art.” to Europe. Overhead costs for shipping and at times heated, debate that lasted for To support the new art and broaden or framing were kept low, and over the many decades. While its epicenter was its audience, Carl Lieber, whose family years the Gamboliers worked within a certainly New York, an audible roar was had been devoted to the museum since the total budget o f twenty-five hundred dol heard in Indianapolis. founding of the Art Association of Indiana lars. Since the majority o f purchases were The story of “Indiana’s wild bunch of in 1883, and Sullivan hatched the Gambo- works on paper, with only a few paintings, gamblers in art,” as the national magazine lier idea. Acknowledging that art museums many items were acquired in the price Art Digest titled them, proved to be an were generally encouraged to purchase range of ten dollars to twenty-five dollars. important episode in this struggle to lend art “safely and sanely,” Blanche Stillson, The Gamboliers obtained more than 160 credibility to modern art in America. The secretary of the Gamboliers, wrote that items. prescient efforts o f Sullivan and her fellow “the only qualification for membership is Theodore B. Griffith, then the vice Gamboliers converged with other initia an interest in contemporary art, together president of L. S. Ayres, was one of tives in the 1920s and 1930s to introduce with a willingness to take chances and the Sullivan’s most devoted lieutenants. He modem art to a wider audience. Signifi payment of $23 a year.” Sixteen members served as treasurer o f the group, making cantly, but perhaps surprisingly, women joined in *1928, the first year in which the department store at 1-15 W. Washing ton Street available for the group’s annual meetings. His commitment to modern art was exemplary: works in the Gamboliers’ Opposite: Jean Lurgat’s etching and screen printing with hand coloring titled Arlequin collection were shown on the walls o f the (Harlequin), from the 1925 series Toupies (Spinning tops). department store for the enjoyment of the TRACES Winter 2009 | 11.

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