AN UNFINISHED CANVAS African American Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

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AN UNFINISHED CANVAS African American Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES AN UNFINISHED CANVAS African American Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art HARRIET G.WARKEL The Indianapolis Museum of Art is an churches and public schools. He was one Hardrick often painted children. Little encyclopedic art museum, which means it of the few African American artists of his Brown Girl, his most famous painting of a collects a broad range of materials, includ­ time who made a living producing art. child, became so popular that an India­ ing American, European, contemporary, Rainy Night, Etaples was painted in Europe napolis African American congregation African, and Asian art in a variety of during the period when Scott studied with raised funds to purchase it for Herron, mediums— paintings, textiles, sculpture, Henry Ossawa Tanner, a renowned African which it did in 1929. Unfortunately, the design arts, prints, drawings, videos, and American artist who made his home in painting was listed as missing in an inven­ photographs. Although African American Etaples, France, after becoming disen­ tory conducted in 1942 and remained art can be found in many of the IMA’s chanted with the art scene in America. unaccounted for in subsequent invento­ collecting areas, this article concentrates Rainy Night, Etaples shows the influence of ries. In those days, the policy for lending on the museum’s American art collection, Tanner’s subdued, blue-toned impression­ works from the museum’s collection was which contains art from the eighteenth ist style. In 1913, after Scott’s return to very broad and record keeping was less rig­ century to the end ofWorld War II. Indianapolis, the painting was exhibited in orous. It was not until 1993, when a New The IMA acquired its first work by an Stark’s studio. It was purchased by a group York dealer offered Little Brown Girl to the African American artist in 1913 when the of African American citizens, who then IMA, that its whereabouts became known. museum was part of the John Herron Art donated it to the Herron Art Museum as a Further research turned up a possible Institute and known as the Herron Art gift to its permanent collection. reason for its disappearance. A sheet in the Museum. That year, Rainy Night, Etaples, In 1927 John Wesley Hardrick (1891— museum’s outgoing files indicated that the by Indiana native William Edouard Scott 1968), another Indiana native, won the painting was lent to a hotel in Wawasee, (1884—1964) came into the collection. Harmon Foundation Bronze Medal for his Indiana, sometime around 1940. It can Scott was trained by Hoosier Group artist painting Little Brown Girl. The Harmon only be assumed that the piece was sold Otto Stark and later at the School of the Foundation presented awards to African along with the other contents of the hotel Art Institute of Chicago. He became one Americans for distinguished achievement when the establishment closed in the mid- of the first African Americans to teach in in the fine arts. Hardrick studied at Her­ 1940s. A search of the outgoing files was the Indianapolis public schools and the ron and worked as an artist while holding not done until the painting’s reappearance only black to participate in the Wishard down various jobs that included working in 1993, probably because the task can be Hospital mural project. This project con­ in the family hauling business and driving daunting without knowing the approxi­ sisted of sixteen artists from Indiana who a cab. He kept his paintings in the trunk mate date the painting left the museum. painted murals on the walls of what was of his cab, using every opportunity he The problem of how to bring Little Brown then known as City Hospital. Fhe subject could find to sell them to his custodiers. Girl back into the collection had to be for Scott’s murals was the life of Christ. He worked for the Public Works of Art solved. The museum could not buy a Scott became famous as a mural and Project during the Great Depression paint­ painting that was already part of its collec­ portrait painter. His work can be found ing murals for the Crispus Attucks High tion, but it could compensate the dealer in numerous Chicago and Indianapolis School auditorium in Indianapolis. for her financial investment in the work. After numerous discussions, the dealer and the museum reached an agreement that Opposite: Joseph Delaney’s oil on canvas work titled The Artists Party. Before his death in 1991, resulted in the return of Little Brown Girl Delaney worked as artist in residence for the art department at the University of Tennessee. after a fifty-year absence. TRACES | Summer 2009 | 39.
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