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| Elmer Taflinger working on The Immortal Seesaw, 1957 |
Another One or Two that Got Away.
From the earliest days of introduction on the art scene stage of Indianapolis, Elmer Taflinger would contribute his talents in the support and decoration of the annual costume balls that were sponsored by the Indianapolis Artists Club as a fundraiser for Herron scholarships. His experience as a set designer for Broadway producer David Belasco positioned him as perhaps the local artist with the most experience in creating large-scale, decorative decoration and art. His participation is these events, and others like them, occurred regularly throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
Seizing upon this unique skill set of monumental scale decorative design and production, Taflinger would offer a proposal in 1947 to decorate the newly remodeled house of representatives and senate chambers in the Indiana Statehouse. The renovation had left space for the grand project of two murals, and the administration of Governor Ralph F. Gates had chosen Elmer Taflinger for the job based on his proposal. Unfortunately, push back from the opposition party derailed the actual funding for Taflinger's project, and a new administration and electors came into office with different priorities, and Taflinger's dreams of a grand Indiana public mural project were quashed once more.
The May 14, 1949 Indianapolis Star reports, regarding the cancellation,
“ Adornment of the newly remodeled Indiana state legislative chambers with $20,200 worth of mural paintings probably will be vetoed by the new economy-minded Democratic state administration.
Governor Henry F. Schricker said yesterday he favored use of the funds for 'a more practical purpose.' ”
Unfortunately, politics was to doom the latest Taflinger grand mural project. It all seemed petty finger pointing and grand-standing when new Governor Schricker's opinions of the prior Republican administrations renovations and proposed murals are covered by The Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger, on May 17,
“He liked the old halls with all their tradition better. He called the remodeling an atrocity.
Squelching the proposal for the spending of $20,000 for the murals, Governor Schricker told the state legislative advisory committee currently: 'I think we had better use the money on Central State...which is badly in need of repairs' ”
A couple of different newspapers around this time, did at least describe what could have been, had the State fulfilled its end of the bargain. The May 30, Muncie Star describes the ill-fated Taflinger's plan for the the Senate chamber, whose cancellation by then was a fait accompli, with a glowing review that seemed to plead for the project's completion,
“Abraham Lincoln, who grew to manhood in Indiana, will have an impressive memorial in the state Capitol if plans are carried out to complete the remodeled Senate chamber with murals showing the emancipator as a youth climbing a Spencer County hill with shafts of sunlight coming through the cathedral-like hardwoods.”
The same day in The Indianapolis Star, the House chamber plan is described,
“Design for the murals in the House of Representatives includes views of every courthouse in the state and pictures of the national heroes for whom the counties were named. Woven into the designs around an 18-foot figure typifying Indiana would be scenes of the important industrial activities of the state.”
In a bitter twist of fate, Taflinger would not only suffer the wound of another lost big signature project, but he would also live to see what became of the blank mural walls in the years to come. The Depressionists would prevail when Works Projects Administration-style artists would ultimately complete the projects, rather than him.
New York artist, Leon Kroll, was awarded the Senate chamber and completed, in 1952, his three panel mural depicting scenes of Indiana. The artist was later alleged to be a communist sympathizer, and the murals were ultimately removed in the 1970s during yet another politically-tinged remodel.
Eugene Savage, of Covington, Indiana originally, was awarded the House chamber mural and painted Spirit of Indiana in 1964 (called originally Apotheosis of Indiana). This mural was likely to have haunted Taflinger with thoughts of what could have been. The mural would outlive Taf, and remains in place to this day.
Nudge Me Two Times, Baby.
The next big thing for Elmer Taflinger would be heralded by a couple of possible stirring events in the artist's career timeline in the mid-1950s. By this time, after the cancellation of his possible involvement in the Indiana State House murals, he settled back into teaching classes in figure drawing and painting at his atelier in the large former stable building in the side yard of the Indianapolis Propylaeum on the city's Old Northside.
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| Elmer Taflinger studio location, Delaware Street |
He had also built on his prior associations with the DePauw college art department and taught and lectured there from time to time, as well as hosting students in his own studio in Indianapolis.
On the September 19, 1954, Indianapolis Star book review page, Corbin Patrick covered the recently released life story of the late David Belasco, the flamboyant and innovative show business producer, in a biography published as Bishop of Broadway. Recall that Belasco employed Elmer Taflinger as art director between 1914 and 1922.
The review notes Belasco's tenancy toward embellishment and self-aggrandizement which perhaps are indicative more of the show business itself as opposed to the man's personality quirks. His accomplishments and adventures were spectacular without exaggeration, as Patrick notes in his column,
“...the biographer's task was complicated enormously by the fact the man was largely a self-inspired myth even in his lifetime. He rarely neglected an opportunity to improve on a good story...
...but his life was fabulous enough without the gilding his showmanship gave it.”
Truer words could not be said for the his protege Elmer Taflinger, who seemed to make use of these same tenancies, whether learned or innate, as he captained an art career of sequential set-piece spectacles, press release stunts and gossip column mentions. The book's release, notoriety and the inclusion of a couple of photos of Taflinger with his mentor, may have got his show biz juices flowing again.
Another instigating nudge during this period may have been the newspaper coverage of Herron students preparing the Gauguin-inspired mural paintings for the annual Beaux-Arts Ball to benefit a scholarship fund and sponsored by the Indiana Artists Club. Although Taflinger had been art director in past years for this event, in 1956 he was on the ticket committee and the decorations were handled by someone else.
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| Herron students, 1956 |
Perhaps it was yet another challenge to Taflinger's sense of mural-making mastery, as, by the next year, he was again in the art direction chair and responsible for decorating the event on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Herron Art Institute.
The One-Day Megaproject.
Several different news columns in the Indianapolis papers between March and June 1957 would detail Taflinger's massive mural project for the event, Bal Modurne 57. On March 19, in The Indianapolis News, a first description of Taflinger's plans are detailed,
"Elmer Taflinger...is executing four gigantic murals to decorate the walls of the ballroom.
The mural measures 26x78 feet. The figures of David and Venus are the center of interest, with seven larger than life-size figures of modern artists and 15 figure compositions of modern paintings.”
A March 27 Indianapolis Star article reports that Taflinger had a hand in designing the invitations for ball, which were sent to notable celebrities such as Pablo Picasso, Salvadore Dali, Edward G. Robinson and Vincent Price.
The March 30 Indianapolis News contained a photo of Taflinger at work on one of the large panels for the mural the artist calls, at that time, See Saw. According to Taflinger, the mural depicts “the constant battle between the traditional and the modern schools of art.”
The gigantic scale of the mural is shown in a photo in the May 5 Indianapolis Star. Taflinger, sitting on a stool in front of just a single panel of four of the work is dwarfed by David's arm and a head.
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| Elmer Taflinger, 1957 |
The accompanying article by Ruth Ellen Banta goes on to describe the work fully, saying in part,
“Dali is pictured hanging upside down on a trapeze putting a steel mustache on David. Van Gogh is hauling up a bouquet of sunflowers...to give to Venus. Cezanne, who liked to paint green apples, is offering a green apple to Venus.”
Taflinger's surreal and thoughtful design is explained when describing another part of the mural,
“Standing by (Venus) is Henry Moore, a contemporary British (sculptor), pictured in surgeon's garb with an air hammer...Taflinger explained that Moore is sure that the green apple will disagree with Venus and is waiting to operate.”
Adding that,
"Moore is known for sculptures of women with holes for stomachs."
Another panel of the work is described,
“...artists Chagall and Lautrec are fighting a duel with tubes of paint to symbolize the fight to use more color.”
And finally,
“Scattered around all three panels are hungry vultures...'waiting to pick the bones of those who create' and Susie, the finger-painting chimpanzee.
Also pictured are the Three Fates of mythology, spinning, measuring and cutting yarn. They represent the fates which govern artistic movements.”
On June 10, The Indianapolis News ran a post mortem of sorts, after the event, in and article with Taflinger about his technique in creating the humongous mural in such a short time-frame. He had purchased a Leica projector and special 50 mm lens to aid in the transfer of his design to canvas, saving 52 days work by his own estimation.
It is a shame that no critical review of the installed mural was published contemporaneous to its display at the ball. However, the photos in the papers of portions of See Saw as a work in progress, and a detailed study now in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, are indicative of a singularly impressive achievement that succeeds on the artistic merits of conception, design and execution, even if somewhat comic in theme and bombastic in scale. In a way, it's pop art just before pop art.
The project would be recalled in late life by Taflinger himself, as a rechristened memory named The Immortal Seesaw.
In an April 4, 1976 interview with Marion Garmel of The Indianapolis News, he vividly recalls the mural which, since its one and only opening night, had been rolled up and stored in his Delaware Street studio.
He retells the stories from two decades before, about the mural, its content and its meaning. The mural's myth, the fossilized memory in his mind, a concrete reality that sat collecting dust just a few feet away.
The Immortal Seesaw was an outlandish embellishment and an exquisite exaggeration in and of itself. A show biz blockbuster, if only for a day.
Mark Diekhoff, October 2025
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