The First and Last 'Indiana Artists' in Indianapolis

Jurors Patterson Sims (left) and Kit Basquin interact with MXYZ/MIMOSA
 by Roger Laib, 70th Indiana Artists Show, IMA

The first Indiana Artists exhibition in Indianapolis was held at the Herron Art Institute in April of 1908. The 70th Indiana Artists Show biennial was held in June 1985 at Indianapolis Museum of Art. 

The show arose from earlier annual exhibits of Indiana Artists held in Richmond, Indiana in 1898 onward. For a period of time, after its establishment in Indianapolis until about 1925, it was the same show traveling between the two cities. After that time, each city would separately organize and host a distinct exhibit of Indiana Artists annually. In about 1960, the event in Indianapolis would become a biennial event hosted by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. 

Not historical in nature, the Indianapolis exhibits, in their own time, would showcase the contemporary offerings of Indiana's premier and professional artists. The styles of the artists over time would range from academic, naturalist and impressionist at the beginning, all the way to minimalist, post-modern, and neo-expressionist by the end.

In between were periods of modern art, social realism and regionalism that were followed by surrealism, abstraction, pop and minimalism.  Throughout the run of the exhibition history, the capture and representation of the Hoosier local landscape, by various means, would be of preeminent concern to many Indiana artists.

Prelude to a Tradition.

Exploring the weeks and months around the start of the inaugural Indiana Artists exhibition at Herron  in April 1908, it is discovered that the show did not arise out of nowhere. The Indianapolis art scene of the time was not some creative nature abhorring a vacuum. The reputations of many city artists had already been established by then, and many young artists were following in their footsteps. The John Herron Art School and its museum, the John Herron Art Institute had been established in 1902, and was to host many varied art exhibitions, including some annuals, in its earliest years. 

For example, the 23rd Annual Exhibition of the Art Association of Indianapolis was winding up in January 1908. It featured national, regional and local art with pieces being lent for that year's exhibit by Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Cincinnati Museum Association, to name just a few. Of note were paintings by Frank Duveneck of Cincinnati, a talented artist and well-known art instructor in that city.  

Just a month later, the 12th Annual Exhibit of the Society of Western Artists which was held at Herron in February 1908.  This exhibit series had launched the wider recognition and further successes of Hoosier Group originals like T. C. Steele, J. Ottis Adams and William Forsyth. T. C. Steele was represented by the Brown County landscape, The Hill Country, and Adams presented several works from the area near his Brookville studio home, The Hermitage, such as the picture Winter Morning. The exhibit also included the painting, The Willows, by Dorothy Morlan. This picture was also painted in Brookville, by Miss Morlan, a resident of Irvington. The Willows was noteworthy by its acceptance for exhibition in the 103rd Annual Exhibit of American Art in Philadelphia for later that year. 

The First One (and the Second).

On a newspaper page shared with many ads showing the latest touring cars and automobiles on offer, some made by car manufacturers located downtown, an exhibition of Indiana Artists was announced for the first time in Indianapolis.  The March 21, 1908, Indianapolis News reads,

“Beginning April 4 and closing May 4 there will be an exhibition of original works in oil, water color, black and white and in sculpture by Indiana resident artists at the John Herron Art Institute. The artists of Indiana are invited participate. Works are to be submitted to a jury of selection and must be delivered at the institute on or before March 28...”

Lucille Morehouse, the art writer for The Indianapolis Star, was not yet on the scene. She would debut about 1913, so the exhibit lacks critical observation by local newspaper writers. However, an inventory of artists and some of their works is contained in an April 4 column in The Indianapolis News,

“There are thirty-seven of the home artists represented in the Indiana display, representing a total of 118 numbers in the catalogue.  A preliminary survey of the exhibit shows that Mr. Steele...has three studies rich with the warmth of autumn coloring and filled with the spirit of the State he loves and loves to paint. There is also a portrait of his daughter. William Forsyth has a group of nine works, two of which are water colors. Otto Stark is represented by six pictures. Emma B. King shows five. Dorothy Morlan also has a group, five in number. R. B. Gruelle exhibits three pictures...”

Other local artists are listed, ending with a note about a younger artist new to the scene at the time. Simon Baus, a future Irvington Group artist, the article writes, “shows two studies in oil.”

And so, the first Indiana Artists show in Indianapolis ended. Its success, or not, was not mentioned in the papers at the time, however it would return for an encore the next year.

That following year, the exhibit, not yet anticipating its future legacy, was not referred to as an annual event.  The February 4, 1909, Indianapolis Star, provides coverage of the show, with a bit more critical observation than the previous year's show,

“Paintings that form an interesting and surprising display of the accomplishments of Indiana artists were placed on exhibition yesterday...There are 164 paintings, drawings and pieces of sculpture...all of them by Indiana artists and most of them of high artistic merit...

The one thing thing which strikes a visitor first of all in looking down the long gallery...is the extreme freshness of color. It is a marked display of the trend of art during the last few years when painters have begun to give color and lights their true value and have ceased to soften colors down to a lower scale. The pictures, with few exceptions, are in unmixed, fresh colors,  and in the landscapes the brilliance of sunlight is given its true value, a piece of artistic daring that could not have been attempted a few years ago.”

Just one painting, and not a landscape, is described in greater detail in the article,

“A painting which is creating great interest is that of the late Herman Lieber by T. C. Steele. It was loaned by the German House and is given a prominent place in the exhibit.”

Portrait of Herman Lieber by T. C. Steele, 1908,
Athenaeum, Indianapolis

The article seems to reference the extraordinary Portrait of Herman Lieber by Steele that is still on display in the Rathskeller restaurant in downtown's Athenaeum, in the 'Vonnegut' dining room.

The Last One, from the Jurors.

Perhaps it was known by the powers that be at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1985, that the 70th Indiana Artists Show, was to be the last. Many local artists were caught off balance, though, when that turned out to be the case. That was two years in the future, though, out of sight and out of mind. 

As mentioned above, the exhibit, since about 1960 had become  a biennial event, showing in odd-numbered years, and wasn't set to happen again until 1987.

The show in 1985 was appearing in the summer slot, a slot shared by the IMA's other biennial, the Painting and Sculpture Today exhibit. That show was held in the off, even years. It was also a large group show, but it featured national trends in contemporary art, highlighting artists from New York and Chicago. 

Jurors statements regarding the Indiana Artists appeared at the fore of the catalog publication that accompanied the 70th Show. 

Kit Basquin, an art critic in Milwaukee, and a former Indiana art gallery owner, describes some parameters that guided her decisions as a juror,

“Qualities considered are compositional resolution, controlled technique, originality, risk, energy, and intensity.”  

She noted, among the artists and their work,

“A sense of isolation prevails. There seem to be few artists interacting in a visual dialogue with each other, and few constructing a dialogue with artists outside.”

Juror Hollis Sigler, an artist in Chicago, describes her decisions,

“I will say that tried to choose those that pushed their ideas successfully.  In good works, the viewer is not distracted from the spell of the work by either unrefined technique of by self-consciousness. The distraction caused by poor technique is self-evident. Though I would choose every time a work of poor technique, that was ambitious conceptually, over a work poorly thought out but expertly accomplished.”  

Specifically about paintings, she directed the following remarks,

“Many artists, I felt, needed to work on color. Color is absolutely basic. Until one understands the many aspects of color, one cannot communicate with paint.”

About the show in general, she sums up her observations, ending with a prescient question,

“The (70th Show) has a bit of everything, different styles, different media. I chose what I thought pushed ahead, showed originality and good, quality craftsmanship.  I think it represents what is happening in Indiana in the 1980s – a diversity, but within a growing national culture. Indiana, like the rest of the country, is becoming less regional in its thoughts about art.  For better or worse, the state is more connected with the large, major art centers. Sometimes I believe in the goodness of this, how it broadens all of us. But then, too, will we all begin to look, dress, think alike?”

Finally, juror Patterson Sims, Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, expresses himself in a more obtuse, even magical manner. He writes of the selection process itself, as if observing a seance, 

“There is a kind of trance intelligence that guides jurors as the selection process proceeds. Awareness becomes almost premeditated about what is wrong and what is right to an exhibition. A balance of media and attitude hovers at the edge of conscious thought to separate the affirmed from the rejected.”

He mentions that the processes and choices among the three jurors, himself included, 

“...were ripe with reservation and disagreement, yet they reflect – like an opinion poll made from the ideas of thousands  to mirror the views of millions – a vivid consensus about...(art)...in Indiana in 1984-85.”

Sims notes a particular common theme, mentioned by juror Sigler as an attribute of the Indiana artists themselves, here by Sims as an attribute of their art, 

“...though the isolation of the individual may be shared as a subject...(the) means of expression are radically different.” 

From a Critic, Like an EF5.

Two years prior, in 1983, the 69th Indiana Artists was reviewed critically by Indianapolis Star arts writer, Steve Mannheimer. Perhaps his measured and thoughtful remarks can be summed  up simply by saying that the exhibit was convoluted in whole and lacking in parts. Mannheimer ended his review with suggestions for possible future changes regarding the show. Perhaps someone somewhere was listening.

(Those observations are discussed in greater detail in an earlier blog about Patrick King and his pioneering Contemporary Art gallery on Massachusetts Avenue in the 1980s, and can be found here.)

With his review of the 70th Show, Mannheimer would have one last bite at the Indiana Artists apple, as it turns out. He finds a connective thread running through the show that was not noticed, or at least not mentioned, by the jurors of the show.  The headline of his Art World column in the Indianapolis Star on June 30, 1985, says it all –  Whirlwind of artistry hits museum galleries.

With exuberant, writerly finesse, Mannheimer's opening paragraph sets the tone,

“Look out Oz, here comes Indiana.

From Terry Copen's grand-prize winning Son Hero to the rambling shambles of Roger Laib's MXYZ/MIMOSA, probably the most controversial and certainly one of the worst works included, the 70th Indiana Artists Show spins with a tale of cyclonic energy.

The maelstrom or whirlpool or cyclone has been a pervasive artistic image in recent years, fluttering the neo-expressionist coattails with the same intensity it riles rural roadside cattails.”

Wow – mighty hard, the wind she blows, as Mannheimer notes. 

He relays in his unique and singular voice, a storm damage report, as he surveys the state of both the ruins and the firmer foundations in the aftermath of Hurricane Art. 

He starts with Laib's  MXYZ/MIMOSA,  

“There was mythic scale and allegory in pictures of clipperships crushed by icebergs or tiny mountain villages swept away by snowslides. Such grand drama. However, is precisely what's missing in works like Laib's huge, cantankerous conglomeration of suspended leaves and sticks, bark, lumber, shutters, canvas and a parachute.

Large as a mastodon, it resembles nothing so much as the forced crossbreeding of a house and a tree at gale-force velocity. Aggressive in its rawness, totally undeflected by considerations of craft or design intelligence, it has all the presence of a 300-pound left tackle with a high voice, which is provided by a radio in the center of the construction playing loud enough to be bothersome but not quite disruptive.” 

About the show's grand prize winner, Terry Copen, Mannheimer writes,

“In Copen's winning work, the Son Hero stands waist-deep in a whirlpool. Down by his side, he clutches a fistful of artist's brushes painted with sketchy linearity and suggesting a bouquet and/or an effusive physical release. 

Copen's other and actually better work, convenient for our purposes named Whirlpool, depicts a figure again half-submerged, reaching around to encircle then point to a smaller figure's eyes.”

Please see color images of Terry Copen's work,
including Son Hero here

Mannheimer sees the second painting as a pun, of artist as eye and seer, riding a whirlpool and recognizing it for what it is,

 “(a symbol of)...the modern quest for the steady-state pulse of the gyroscope, great inward acceleration without the fear of flying apart, excitement without risk.”

Perhaps a final two examples that most readily support Mannheimer's premise about a windy theme breezing through the show, would be work by Steve Paddack and Richard Burkett,

“Obviously, we hear the wind blowing through Steve Paddack's Monuments, Windy Day, a rather pretty skyscape half way between (Gianbattista) Tiepolo and a tornado. Two smokestacks bear a family resemblance to the funnel clouds Paddack has painted in the past.

Richard Burkett's two matching ceramic sculptures, Midwestern Vision (No. 2 and No. 3), both feature square little clay houses tipped up on a corner, pyramid roofs surmounted by funnel clouds.”

After discussing more examples that veer further off the Tornado Alley he drove in on, Mannheimer sums up his thoughts at the end,

“Of course the bottom line of all such shows is the futility of any grasping at interpretive straws. Any and all overarching theorizing must be done with the same running desperation which jurors, no matter how qualified, necessarily apply to the herculean task of making so many judgments.

Only 81 works by 64 artists are left from and initial submission of more than 2,000 slides by 681 artists. Pretty much the same effects, that is to say the same relative coherence within diversity, could be achieved by a lottery of every artist in the state with an art school pedigree.

Actually, come to think of it, we may still be in Kansas. It would probably be hard to tell the difference.” 

Controversial Aftermath and New (or Final?) Frontiers.  

Just as the first Indiana Artists exhibit in Indianapolis did not start in a vacuum, the last was not to be an end all and be all either.

Regionals, of the art exhibit kind, had been losing their luster for awhile by the mid-1980s. Certainly, turns out, that was going to be the trend in Indianapolis. 

Other trends and series would spring up and gain traction for awhile, such as the Indiana Artist of the Month series, and Forefront Gallery offerings, of local and national artists respectively, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The Arts Postcard Series sponsored by Arts Insight, a monthly art magazine in Indianapolis, showcased Indiana artists in a new annual series that began in the early 1980s.   

Nevertheless, there was consternation in the local arts community as a result of recent developments in the local art scene. 

Two art collectives arose almost simultaneously that spring, and would join forces in the wake of the official announcement that the Indiana Artists exhibition had indeed been canceled for that year. 

Marion Garmel, in her Brush Strokes column in The Indianapolis News on April 8, 1987, notes the beginnings of one such group,

“Richard Nickolson is a small-boned, soft-spoken professor of painting, with a long, gnome-like beard. He doesn't look like the sort of man to start a revolution.

But he is angry and he's not going to take it any more.

'There is a need for us to have a voice, but not a voice that says the Indianapolis Museum of Art is the only voice for artists, or the Indiana Repertory Theatre is the only voice for actors,' Nickolson told a capacity crowd at the first meeting of the Coalition of Indianapolis Artists at the 431 Gallery Monday night.”

Garmel writes about some sources for the artistic community's displeasure,

“Among other things, they are 'dismayed' that establishment institutions got top priority at the recent forums called by the Indianapolis Arts Council to develop a long-range cultural plan for Indianapolis.

'It means individual artists will be given the shaft again,' said artist-writer Doris Hails.”

An April 12, Indianapolis Star article written by Anne Cunningham discusses the second arts advocacy group formed earlier that February, also present at the meeting,

“The United Artists and Media Exchange, representing 40 Afro-American artists...formed...to provide a voice for its members. Its chairman, Charles E. Tripp, attended the Coalition meeting. With 45 visual artists, actors, musicians and writers attending, the floor was opened to a rapid-fire discussion of problems the members in each artistic discipline face.”

Cunningham penned a later article, also in The Star, May 24, that focused on a major complaint of the local Indiana artists that spring,

“The biennial Indiana Artists Show, a juried exhibit which would normally be shown this summer, has been canceled. The Indianapolis Star has received and published several letters to the editor, written by local artists who are upset by the cancellation. They have charged that the IMA is shirking its responsibility to Indiana artists, and that they have been denied an opportunity to showcase their works for visitors who will attend the (Pan-Am) games.” 

Cunningham, to her credit, seems to have adopted the controversy as a personal cause celebre, and would continue writing about developments in her columns in The Indianapolis Star. 

On July 26, she provided an update on the activities and plans of the Coalition,

“...in July, 16 members of the Coalition's steering committee met in a Morris Building artist's studio to finalize details for A Creative Affair, an art exhibition and performance event that will open Friday night at the Goodman Building, 20 West Washington Street.” 

As a side note, the Goodman Building, at 20 West, was right next door to 24 West, built in 1897 for the H. (Herman) Lieber Company, which specialized in picture framing, bookbinding and art supplies up until 1979.

The Coalition pop-up show was reviewed with a caustic brevity by Marion Garmel, a normally cheerful and upbeat writer, in the August 8, 1987, Indianapolis News,

“Indianapolis artists, upset that , in order to house its Latin American show, the museum of art canceled its biennial Indiana artists show, have mounted a show of their own on four floors of the downtown Goodman Quad. The best thing about it is the colorful banner over the door proclaiming A Creative Affair. Nearly 90 artists are exhibiting everything from mock altar triptychs to a dark and shadowy copy of Rembrandt's Self Portrait.”

Cunningham would provide slightly more detailed coverage of the show, albeit critical as well, in her column in The Star on August 9, 

“The show affirms our respect for the work of artists like Richard E. Nickolson and Ed Sanders, and introduced us to the talent of other artists like Brian Fick. Yet, the depth of the city's art scene  remains at issue. Many viewers will leave the show with the feeling that this city has some good artists and a lot of work to do.” 

But perhaps Cunningham's most prophetic remarks are about the synthesis of artists self organizing their own exhibits and large, raw spaces downtown,

“A Creative Affair proves that city artists can organize and work together toward a common goal...It certainly suggests that the city's immediate downtown area is a perfect place for a large, noncommercial, contemporary art exhibition  space to compliment the existing commercial galleries.”

The Stutz Factory complex of buildings, was the birthplace of the mass production of the famous Bearcat automobile. Its founding at 10th and Capitol was near in time and place to the Indiana Artists Exhibition a little across town. The Stutz would become a showcase for  exhibits of the kind envisioned by Cunningham; large, raw and downtown.

In 1993, annual artists studio open house nights would begin at the Stutz, and grow into a local cultural phenomenon. 

The Faris Building, in south downtown, would hold similar events, even earlier, although on a more ad hoc basis, when it was still known as the Morris Building in the 1980s.  

Both large, sprawling warehouses would hold well-attended annual open house events throughout the 1990s.   

Contemporary Indiana Artists, in the calm after the whirlwind caused by the cancel and end of the longtime Indianapolis exhibit in 1987, were left drifting on a Sargasso Sea of sorts.  Like jetsam, then flotsam, they would self-organize in an effort to thrive, or at least not drown. 

But without the deeper pocket megaphones of the art institutions and non-profits, without the bandwidth of the official councils and forums –  in the echo of their large, raw and isolated space – would anyone hear them scream?  

Mark Diekhoff, January 2026

See also: A Homecoming for artist Terry Copen

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

Patrick the First, King of Mass Ave – Part Three

Gemini AI for illustrative purposes only

King for a Day.

Was it all just a dream, a long, long, time ago, along a skid row close at hand? Where a fair-haired young man approached a non-existent art world with little more than a business plan and a packed resume of experience, and a dream.  

This part of his story, told as a fable, although deserving a serious treatise. But art histories usually yellow as clippings in the dusty scrapbooks of time.  Whereas, stories, who knows,  might live and breath the bad and good of their hero's journey, where the quest is the destination, because the present is not a place, it's the kingdom of one's life. So head on pillow, read to me, and show me the pictures...

That...once upon a realm, Patrick King Contemporary Art was heating up, lighting a fuse that would soon explode into a full-fledged scene of merry pranksters and banksters, artists and critics. An emerald-city of a place to draw archetypal characters to its glow –  throne usurpers and pretenders, courtiers and the great unwashed...

To tell it another way...

If a painting was like a football, if only for a little while, that magic movement converging on Massachusetts Avenue was like a packed and crowded Hoosier Dome might be, about a year later, down the road near Union Station. 

A cavernous edifice, big as the Indiana sky, towering above all the crumbling asphalt and the corn. Filled with puffy, cloud-like thoughts of  buzz, and excitement and dreams, all along its small town, yellow road. And looking out, a hazy phantasmagoria, just passed the curve of the visible horizon...

The shade of a flat hand pressed to the forehead as a visor, not trembling, but barely unsteady, trying so hard in the bright sun  just to see. 

Down the way...yes...it's something...yes something is there...an art scene, maybe it is...like a tournament, in that place way yonder on, or way back when...with jousts and banners, fanfare and fancy clothes. 

But dropping the hand, and looking down at the ground beneath the feet. The art before art scene was a ever-changing shadow on the move.  Just a year or so until the start of the ball.  And when it starts, the timer's on. 

And then they would come for the king, like the boilermaker for the leprechaun. At the thundering Dome, with the first whistle, they would come. Some for the love of the game, some for the party, all for the wave. 

And just as Mass Ave, as the colorful mirage was beginning to be called, as the crest was breaking over  cracked sidewalks littered with booze bottles and smelling of, well, let just say the letter 'P'...

Just as as the crest poked above the sea-level of the local topography – the flat-line of the city's art trajectory of late – its gentle first spurtle offered hope. For a rising tide, even if tiny, lifts hope. 

But what kind of rising hope was this Pluto water to become – a tsunami, or just the wind-driven lapping of wavelets upon a small pond?  

And in what state, this H2O? Be it frozen, or an in-between flowing or a gas?  Time would tell.  

Its clock ticking toward midnight with every footstep and every heartbeat. With every bravo, and ring of the register, the echo of something more hollow, and grave. 

Until the next rainbow ends in the moon's caress, the tide's rising and falling assured to repeat in a cycle even older than oceans, but younger than the night. 

But for the moment of King's halcyon days, his remaining weeks and months as the sole ruler of Mass Ave, he kept floating his boat on whatever the water. 

Serene and majestic, Patrick, on his royal barque...  

Big Bang or Steady State?

Much as Patrick King's first year of shows seemed to be pleasing the local art writers, there were a couple of group shows that were shown by institutions that critics found disappointing. One was a first-ever show and the other was the penultimate of a long-standing and storied local biennial. The reviews were just a day apart, hours even, as one appeared in the evening Indianapolis News and the other in the next morning's Star.

The First Juried Exhibition sponsored by the Indianapolis Academy of Fine Arts was the source of Marion Garmel's vague disapproval.  She reviews the show in her June 25, 1983 News column, writing,

“It's a small show, ultimately disappointing, but it says a lot about the state of the current Indianapolis art scene and contemporary Indiana artists.”

Garmel goes on to describe the art and artists in the show, but is sketchy, at best, in describing the roots of what comes across as a very mild ire. She does say that many of the artists and artworks are of the orbit of Herron Art School. As such, works are repeated or similar to those already seen in student and faculty shows. Connecting styles of professors to students are noted, and obvious at times. Other than that, she does not specify her disappointment. 

Steve Mannheimer, in his criticism of the 69th Indiana Artists exhibit at Indianapolis Museum of Art, in the next day's Star, displayed the trickster in him.  The trickster, as agent of change, as soothsayer, when he observes and he prods. He begins his review with a shrug and sigh,

“There has got to be a better way. At this rate we're never going to figure out whether Indiana artists can really cut the mustard or will forever play catch-up ball with the rest of the country.”

He quotes the museum's director, Robert A. Yassin, in the exhibition's press release that touts work in the show as competitive with art in Chicago and New York galleries. Mannheimer's reaction after seeing the show was succinct,

“Hoosier kidding who?”

For Mannheimer, the show was an amalgam of good, and not so much. The good being, by and large, the award winners in the show. Explaining his reaction more thoroughly,

“What we get is something for everybody. What we don't get is any sense of that 'strong Indiana tradition,' unless said tradition consists  simply of being from Indiana.

The vast majority of the work simply does not live up to such praise...

The first two rooms of the south gallery are littered with lackluster paintings, unexceptional in either concept or execution. What competence does emerge is completely undercut by adjacent amateurism...”

But he also notes that, generally speaking, the prize winners are worthy, technically competent and visually interesting. So he doesn't just complain. And he offers alternatives to the exhibit's “scatter gun attack.” As ways to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, he suggests,

“...take the prize winners, all 20 of them, and invite them to fill the third floor (of IMA) with five or six of their best pieces. Such an exhibit would represent the state of the art of the state more succinctly and, more importantly, with greater individual depth....

But if the invitational approach sounds too limiting, another alternative might be to offer winners small, one-person shows throughout the year. The IMA contains several spaces ideal for a small show.

 ...yet another alternative...could be...theme shows. Would not a more discussable, and hence a more useful exhibit be achieved by, let's say, a survey of the best realistic work in the state one year and only surrealism or abstraction the next?”

Mannheimer had had his say. To what effect was yet to be seen.  

As the art world in Indianapolis was to evolve it would display the tenancies of any old universe. Most simply explained as competing and binary theories; Big Bang or Steady State?

Big Bang is easy enough to imagine, a scene that keeps growing and expanding; more art and more artists, more galleries, more patrons, more sales. 

Whereas Steady State is a closed system;  finite resources or energy, where the rise and fall of things overlap and overlap, until the stasis of an ever-promised equilibrium is once again perceived. That is to say, in such a system, the rise of art on Massachusetts Avenue would foretell a fall elsewhere, such as the many decade's old Indiana Artists show. 

Recall that Indianapolis swapped out the old County Courthouse for the new City County Building. Indianapolis was missing something of a big bang there, either resources or imagination, parking or a jail. It either could not or would not not sustain both a beautiful heritage and the dazzling future, in that example.

Pax Ars Rex...

Outside of theories, and bedtime stories, the real world lurks. And Patrick King Contemporary Fine Art concluded its first full calendar year with Patricia Campbell's The Modular Form in October 1983 and then Shadow, Spaces and the Real by Rick Paul in November.  

Marion Garmel reviewed Campbell's show in an October 21, 1983 Indianapolis News column,

 “(Patrick) King has carefully renovated his small gallery to best exhibit the hanging, flowing, curving works of fabric that Miss Campbell creates.”

And further, about the “architectural fabric constructions,”

 “They swing from ceiling to wall...(and) in alcoves lit from behind...

...Each is composed of identical 'modules,' usually pieces of cotton muslin stretched and shellacked till they crackle like paper, connected by wooden dowels and paper chord.”

And about the design and/or effect of the artworks,

“The pieces are obviously designed to fit into, yet soften the harshness of, contemporary architecture.

The regular repetition of modules is (quoting the artist) 'very geometric. It has a machine look. But the closer you get, you see it is handmade. You understand an artist made it, a machine didn't.' ” 

Barbara Stokely reviews Rick Paul's exhibition of six drawings and five wall constructions in her December 4, 1983, Indianapolis Star article.  Her comments about his drawings relate to his wall constructions as well,

“The imagery of these monochromatic illustrations on paper denotes mostly itself and rarely connotes other allusions.

...For Paul, the illusionistic conventions of painting and drawing become the subject...”

Stokely quotes the artist and his motives,

“I create illusion in dimension...but I don't want to build. In my drawings, I record sculptural ideas that can't be made. I have fantasies that can't be defined.”

She will also review Patrick King's following show, Sculpture Jam, in the February 4, 1984, Star,  

“While Sculpture Jam...may sound like an upbeat improvisation, the crowding together of all these works brings another meaning of 'jam' to mind.

Some of the pieces by the nine featured artists are fresh and new; more suffer from deja vu. King might have better served his artists by showing a little restraint and limiting the show to new work.

Several of the works by Skip Koebbeman, Valarie Eickmeier, Dale Traugott, Doug Calisch, Rick Paul and Gary Freeman have been seen in recent exhibitions at the Indianapolis Art League, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, or the Herron Gallery. IUPUI.”

She points out one egregious example, judging from her phraseology, 

“Overexposure for (Gary) Freeman's five maquettes for the American United Life sculpture competition has reached the point of diminishing returns... 

Freeman's Sally's Jams, a large, welded and bolted steel sculpture which dominates the center (placement in the show) is much more eloquent.” 

You get the sense from the newspaper coverage that Patrick King really hits the mark with his next show, Paintings by Joni Heide and Dennison Griffith, in March. Both Marion Garmel, toward the shows opening, and Steve Mannheimer, near the closing, have good things to say. 

In the March 9, 1984 News, Garmel writes,

“Pattern is the key to Joni Heidi's large paintings...Simplicity is the key to Dennison Griffith's. 

Yet the two, who each have maintained a sense of childish delight, work well together in the exhibit...”

About Heide's Hope to Tell You, she writes,

“...one of her liveliest works, (it) features a primitive four-legged dog with his flowered shadow on the right and a spangly costume, head area cut out for a real person to step behind, on the left. A small, enigmatic, figure of a woman seems to be sitting under a tree nearby, while dots and dashes, stripes and tumbling stick figures populate other areas.” 

 And about Ohio artist, Griffith, 

“His large paintings contain simple, large areas of vivid color heavily painted in acrylic, enamel and oil stick.

His largest and most serious painting provides a good example of how Griffith isolates portions of an image to emphasize the whole. It's called Beth – Pink on Gold, and is basically a nude.”

Garmel describes how the works interplay together in the show,

“Neither Griffith nor Miss Heide use three-dimensional perspective – their paintings are all on the surface. Yet the difference between them is readily apparent in two works hung side-by-side. Griffith's Deener is a bare table set with one glass, one knife and one napkin. Miss Heidi's version of the same scene, though untitled, is packed with cups, forks, dogs and a Matisse-like sense of gaiety.”

 Steve Mannheimer's review of the same show in the March 25 Star, is half part review, and half part sociology. About Heidi, he writes,

“Pieces like Hope to Tell You and (Untitled)...may seem too raucous or arbitrary at first. Their colors and pattern-filled composition come across like exploded plaid giftwrap on a Christmas morning aftermath.

Viewers will note that despite this...(they) are really warm, even quietly intimate in their intent. Perhaps this is due to her obvious winks, blinks and nods to children's and ethnographic art.”

About Mr. Griffith's painting he writes,  

“Feeshteek shows us a fish cut by the edge of the picture. It doesn't look like anything else.  Deener is simply a stylized table with a glass, knife and napkin. 

Only (his) Boosh – which, if his mock-accented titles run constant, must mean 'bush' – seems beyond literal interpretation. It's an odd painting, which is to say puzzling, which is to say sort of mysterious, which is to say there's something there worth looking at.”

But regarding Mannheimer's socio-anthropological angle, he concludes his review with a soliloquy about the plight of the starving artist versus the career of the comfy institutionalist, as pertaining generally to the uncertain economy and specifically to the two persons in the show,

“This (making art) is at best a tough, often painful business, fraught with disappointments, occasional disasters and always fickle fate. Not necessarily knowing where one's next bottle of beer is coming from can frazzle the most committed art-aholic.

It's best to appreciate those who manage whatever they can  in whatever their circumstances, and understand those who can't always manage as well or we might hope.”

Art is worth rooting for, and maybe supporting too, Mannheimer seems inspired by the exhibition to say.

Hot on the heels of the show, Patrick King's Passion Leads would quickly follow. And again both Marion Garmel in The News and Steve Mannheimer in The Star would provide thorough reviews.

In her April 20, Brush Strokes column, Garmel sets the scene,

“The paintings at Patrick King Contemporary Art literally scream off the walls: 'Me. Look at Me. This Is Me.”

Her review continues,

“This is Passion Leads, an exhibit of current Chicago painting by three artists...continuing through May 12 at the gallery...

In contrast to the impersonal images of the geometers and minimalists of the 1960s and '70s, Jim Brinsfield, Darinka Novitovic and Will Northerner want you to know these are their paintings reflecting their ideas, their insights, their emotions.

They trace their lineage to the first generation of truly American 20th century painters, the abstract expressionists of the 1940s and '50s, who also wanted to create a pictorial language that would express the physical and spiritual complexities of the modern world. As Brinsfield put it at the opening of the show,  'Being American, we have to be true to ourselves – and we have to be true to our ancestors.'

But unlike their ancestors, to whom the word 'abstract' was as important as the word 'expressionist,' these artists are working in a time when the figure is making a comeback. Their goal is to adopt the formal values of abstract expressionists to an art that incorporates the figure.”

This sounds like a serious undertaking and hearkens back to Patrick King's statement when still working at Editions Ltd., about his early days employed at the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City and even earlier exposure to galleries out East. He was attracted to serious, thought provoking artists, and the professional accommodation of the exhibition of their art.

Mannheimer would review the show as well in the April 29, Art World column,

“Passion Leads...sounds like the title of a Harlequin Romance. There's far more to it, but it's not an inappropriate analogy. Whatever their stylistic simplicities, these paintings, like those books, capture something basic of the American psyche.

As shows go, it's small – 11 decidedly neo-expressionist paintings by three Chicago artists...That's about all the gallery can accommodate. 

The show's impact, however, should be large.

...we have the first show of neo-expressionist painting in a local commercial gallery. Much more than the non-profit culture importers, commercial galleries take the temperature of a city's art scene. 

We're getting warmer. Whatever real art world sophistication is, we're getting closer to it.”

Both Garmel and Mannheimer refer to the exhibition catalog that accompanied the show, containing an essay written by art historian Joanna Muller Kuebler. The tagline to her overarching thesis is that the three Passion Leads artists make “art forms that transcend taste and style.”  Or perhaps to translate, this succinct Kuebler assertion, and Mannheimer's earlier analogy;  something like Beauty meets the Bold.

Mannheimer writes about the works,

“Jim Brinsfield...growls...power in Young Caesar and Loveland. The two paintings rely on energetic black-and-white brushstroke, some shades-of-subway spray paint and tumorous surfaces. Young Caesar is a scraggly, broken-limbed figure proclaiming a mixed stylistic heritage: Giacometti by way of graffiti.

Miss (Darinka) Novitovic's work, on the other hand, seems to have lept full-ardored from the brow of Venus. Her Language of Flowers (et al.)...are, in comparison to Brinsfield's, downright tender. 

In each piece, female figures are outlined in gentle brushstrokes against warmly colored backgrounds. They hug their knees, lift a hand to their face, whisper to each other, perhaps to themselves.

Northerner...has hold of a clutch of themes. His five paintings explore a spectrum of motifs and techniques that all, to some degree, bespeak religious metaphor.” 

Mannheimer describes Northerner's most compelling work, Solemn Maelstrom, Morass, Lianis Lift, 

“The simple, silver spray-painted figure emerging from a multi-colored maelstrom reminds one thematically of New Yorker Keith Haring's 'radiant child' emblem, a mythic creature of light dispelling modern gloom. Northerner's technique, however, is vastly more complex and engrossing.” 

Dividends of a Dream.

As can be seen from this survey of the critical coverage garnered by the exhibitions at Patrick King during his first year and a half of operation, he was riding high on street cred on the avenue. His gallery a force to be reckoned with by mid-1984. A pied piper or a kraken, sweet music or a roar? It's up to art's ear to decide. 

And as the beginning of the story has come to a close, it's time to thank Patrick King for being the first. 

And just think, if he had a nickel for every $100 being charged in rent along Massachusetts Avenue from 1982 up until today...

Well let's just say he could buy IMA or Newfields with that kind of money.  The building and the grounds, that is, not the art. The art inside, as Patrick knows, is priceless.

Mark Diekhoff, December 2025

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