William Lawson Paintings in Art Collected by Ken and Gaynell Collier-Magar

Yellow House and Garden by William Lawson

A Yellow House to Catch the Eye.

On Audubon Avenue south of Washington Street in the heart of Irvington, at number 218 on the west side of the street, is the home of longtime residents Ken and Gaynell Collier-Magar. 

Ken, recently retired, practiced law for many years and Gaynell is a former landscaping company owner and currently instructs yoga at the Irvington Wellness Center.

Gaynell's landscaping background is apparent in the beautiful and organic design of her gardens which surround the home on all sides. The house itself, a pale yellow Dutch Colonial Revival trimmed in white, has yet another attractive feature – the large and inviting front porch.  

Some history of the house, built in 1909, was provided by Dr. Victor Vollrath, when he knocked on the front door, some years ago, announcing to Ken and Gaynell that he used to live there. In fact, his family owned the place for fifty years.

As a child born in 1916, it was the only childhood home he'd ever know, growing up there with his large family. In the neighborhood, Victor was first exposed to the practice of medicine when, still a boy, he ran errands for a doctor living down the street. Doc Walter Kelly who served patients in that home-office around the corner, inspired young Victor to become physician himself. 

On that day he knocked on Ken and Gaynell's door almost a lifetime later, Dr. Vollrath presented them with a photograph of his family in front of the house circa 1920. 

The Vollrath family looks south from the walkway leading to their front door in the photo. Mom has the newest baby in her arms. The four boys, each a head taller than the next youngest, in front of their mother. Victor, the youngest boy standing, was at the fore. The father's pride is apparent as he stands by his family's side, one hand in pocket, one smoking a cigar. A couple door doors down to the north, the wall of a neighboring building – that is, The Snug today.

The Vollrath Family, 218 S. Audubon   c. 1920

The photograph hangs just inside the front door of the Collier-Magars. It is not alone, that image of the front yard of the yellow house, many paintings are close at hand. The house and yard, with its history of that moment frozen in black and white, would find the true color of summer and a garden at the end of artist's brush. 

A Closed Down World and Open Garden.

In 2021, the world was gripped in a stifling COVID lock-down. But in the out-of-doors, a fresh air and a freedom called. People jogged, people rode bicycles, people walked their dogs. 

William Lawson did what he normally does. He worked outside, as an artist painting pictures at his easel.  En plein air, it is called. Meaning 'in the open air,' before his subject. His subject one day was the yellow house.

Lawson painted 218 S. Audubon undetected by the Collier-Magars. The street scene painter of Irvington  was not known to them at the time. It was either spring or summer when he painted the picture, as the blue sky has fair weather clouds and the leaves on the trees are green.  He painted from the sidewalk just north of the house and he peers over a high hedge onto the house from a slight angle. 

The Yellow House - 218 S. Audubon by William Lawson

The gambrel roof, the white gable end and the dentil molding on the yellow house center the focus in the picture. Of playful note, is the string of Tibetan prayer flags. They stretch across, just below the porch roof, bleached from the sun.

The painting was not to go totally unnoticed though, as a friend and neighbor of Ken and Gaynell stopped to chat about the picture with Lawson still at the easel. And as it turns out, Lawson presented the painting to her with instructions to give to the owners at a later date. 

About a year later,  the 22nd Annual Irvington Garden Tour in 2022 was taking place on a sunny Sunday afternoon in June.  William Lawson was painting in the alleyway between the same yellow house and the home just to the north. The emphasis of subject of that new painting was actually the flowery hedge of the next door neighbor's yard, but during the event, which included the Collier-Magar garden as a featured stop on the tour, Lawson was to meet Ken and Gaynell for the first time. 

They would learn of the earlier painting of their own house that day, which was still in possession of the friend and neighbor. But soon after, they would receive it, and they would commission their own Lawson painting. A vibrant and overflowing view of Gaynell's south side-yard garden at its peak season. Another commission would follow of the front yard garden, also in full bloom (top of page). 

The Yellow House Side Garden by William Lawson

The three paintings of the yellow house, together and united like siblings, in Ken and Gaynell's family of artworks. They share a family resemblance;  bright yellow walls, white trim and sunlit gardens.  The paintings would be the foundation of their growing collection of William Lawson works.

A Front Porch View and Wider World.

In the spring of 2021, as the pandemic lingered, William Lawson took up residence in a second-story apartment atop the old drug store building on the southwest corner of Audubon at Bonna. From this central vantage point in Irvington, he would continue creating paintings. His primary direction, as always, was as a plein air painter. The drive of his focus was often overlooked scenes in Irvington and around Indianapolis.

Now living on the same block as the Collier-Magars, he was invited one day, as he returned to his apartment with easel on his back, to join a group on the front porch amid cigar smoke, cognac and conversation. Lawson accepted the invitation and was to return often to join in the always changing cast of neighbors, friends and family, and even passers-by, in the shade of the yellow house porch.

Lawson would paint a scene right from the porch called Old Storefront on Audubon which Ken and Gaynell would acquire. The subject is the old business buildings across the way. 

Old Storefront on Audubon by William Lawson

They would also visit his studio apartment to look at his other works created in the neighborhood, around Indianapolis and even his earlier years spent in Seattle. They would collect his piece View from Desolation Peak, a mountaintop scene in Washington State of a fire watch mountain top made famous by Jack Kerouac in his novel Desolation Angels. The painting shows the golden scrub of vegetation underfoot on a mountain slope with a few skinny evergreens. It looks out to a distant lake and cascading blue hills beneath towering clouds and diffuse sunlight at the horizon.

View From Desolation Peak by William Lawson

Two Indianapolis pictures they would collect are Bridge Over White River, a palette knife oil painting showing the stone arches of a downtown bridge with the new Mariott Hotel breaking the line of sky in the background. And Old Northside Alley, a painting of a favorite motif for Lawson, the urban alleyway, this time in fall. The orange leaves of trees add further color to the central focus, the contrast of a red garage against the green one behind. 

Bridge Over White River by William Lawson

Ken and Gaynell would acquire neighborhood scenes from Lawson's studio including Houses on Whittier, a picture of three mutely-hued homes in shades of white, gray and pink, aside each other in deep angular profile. There is an abundant punctuation of blooming sunflowers and hydrangeas in the foreground.  

Rooftops in Winter - Irvington by William Lawson

Another picture with subtle hues of white, gray and brown – of snow covered roofs and bare trees – in the scene, Rooftops in Winter – Irvington. Its color, a green house, and in the distance, a yellow one, and blue, possess the promise of a coming spring despite the grip of a monotone winter.

In the scene Irvington Railroad in Autumn, the harmony and chaos of color changing is balanced by the precision of the receding railroad tracks and color of the gravel bed.  

Irvington Railroad in Autumn by William Lawson

Cezanne and the Quiet Lives of Apples and Pears.

Although primarily a painter of the out-of-doors, Lawson does studio work as well. His inspiration lately is Paul Cezanne and that artist's still lifes of fruit. Lawson has created numerous small painted studies, preparatory collages, and most recently, larger format paintings that study solidity, color and form.

Still Life with Apples, Pears and an Orange by William Lawson

The Collier-Magars have collected several works from this series, including small paper collages that serve as the first studies for Lawson's most recent larger paintings. And also the smaller paintings; Still Life with Pears and Still Life with Apples, Pears and an Orange.

Of particular interest, related to these still lifes and Cezanne, is a unique Lawson in their collection, Cezanne's Studio. The small picture is a vibrant homage to the master's last workspace in Aix-en-Provence, France. It shows fruit and tablecloth, and an actual statuette and earthenware that populated many of Cezanne's paintings. 

Cezanne's Studio by William Lawson

That Never Ending Spark of Inspiration.

Lawson's friendship with his neighbors, Ken and Gaynell Collier-Magar, and their patronage of his work, began on a sidewalk, then an alley, and finally on a front porch. A porch in Irvington that has inspired Lawson to paint scenes of Irvington while standing in its shade. A porch where Tibetan flags murmur quiet prayers for peace, inspired by the wind.  

Lawson was the inspiration for Ken Collier-Magar to take up the brushes again, after many years, and create a painting. His small study, loaded with primary colors, Amalphi Coast, is a painting of a place so stunning and beautiful, so universally appreciated, that the stretch of southern Italy's coastline is UNESCO listed, as of global significance.

Amalphi Coast by Ken Collier-Magar

Maybe not as renowned, or as universally accepted, are the many sights and scenes of Irvington, Indianapolis and Indiana that appear on William Lawson's list of places. His list of railroad tracks, alleyways, rooftops and bridges is a list preserved in oils and protected on canvas. It is a list he has created over his first thirty years of painting. 

The most recent entry on the list that Ken and Gaynell have collected is his View from Highland Park, painted this past fall. 

The scene is from the Holy Cross neighborhood on the city's east side. It captures the glow of a maple in October, and the tip of a green house and its red chimney, jutting in the sky.  A sky that is shared by high-rises, a church steeple and electric poles. A blue sky, and sidewalk, green grass...the inspirations go on an on.

View From Highland Park by William Lawson

Mark Diekhoff, January 2026 

Thanks to Ken and Gaynell Collier-Magar and William Lawson for sharing details and images about the history of the collection 

Dedicated to my brother Edward, who has concluded his career as a physician of many decades with his retirement today. 

M.D. 1/2/26 

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.

'Comfort' by Philip Campbell at Harrison Center

Comfort by Philip Campbell, Harrison Center, Indianapolis

Audience Participation Overdose Trauma.

Longtime Indianapolis artist Philip Campbell, most known for his wood carvings, exhibited his interactive installation, Comfort, at Harrison Center in October. The artwork consisted of a fabric-clad hospital bed surrounded by a similar colorful quilt that curtained the space around the bed. The familiar appearing patchwork design evokes the ambiance of grandma's house, antique malls, rocking chairs and prayer.

The fiber art in both components was composed of sewn together rectangular fragments from common clothing items such as denim jeans. The jeans were key, as they retained their pockets. The pockets were for the audience participation part of the post modern artwork, evoking social themes related to drug addiction such as overdose, rehab and recovery.

Inspired by hospital emergency rooms overwhelmed by opioid cases, Campbell has softened the anguish of the all too often endpoint of addiction by clothing the sterile environment in the well worn comfort clothes of people who were once patients or in narcotic withdrawal recovery. The use of quilted fabric echoes an earlier epidemic of suffering by evoking memory of the world's largest community folk art project, the AIDS memorial quilt.

Comfort in a Name.

Comfort is a metaphor for the very real phenomenon of something the artist refers to as the 'pink cloud' effect of early drug addiction recovery, where there is a feeling of euphoric well-being as the patient, surrounded by a recovery team, and perhaps hopeful family and friends, begins to shed the outer layers of destructive addictive behaviors and self-destructive rationalizations in an effort to begin the healing process. Pink clouds, like all clouds, are transitory though. The patient must be braced for the long haul and difficult times ahead.

The interactive feature invited gallery viewers to fill out memorial cards with the names of personal lives lost to addiction. Then to exchange the cards with the ephemera and paraphernalia, all too familiar to the addict, in the pockets. A 12-step plan outline or a Narcan nasal spray swapped for the name of one who has no use for such things anymore.

The comfort, then, for the many people affected by the loss of those who did not survive the pink cloud and its aftermath, is the relic of their name on paper and some old clothes. With an American epidemic as common and widespread as apple pie, no matter how you slice it, or dress it up, especially since fentanyl, they are gone.

Comfort here, is both beautiful and sad – like graveyards and memories can be, but hospital rooms seldom are.

Comfort by Philip Campbell

Mark Diekhoff, November 2025 

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.

Indiana's Richard Brown Black – Painting by an Artist as a Young Man

Street Scene, Algiers by Richard Brown Black

Orientalism in Indiana.

A painting of glowing mastery and golden beauty hangs in the genealogy room of the Greenfield Public Library. It is an street scene of North Africa, in a late orientalist style that borders on modernism. The vaguely abstract manner of its rendering is evocative of the mystery of its subject matter of faraway daily life. The picture appears created with a level of skill seen by masters of the French genre, Eugene Delacroix and Jean-Leon Gerome. It was a genre that coincided with the more well-known romantic movement that supplanted the neoclassical period dominated by Jacques-Louis David and Jean August Dominique Ingres.

European interest in the 'Orient,' as Egypt and Northern Africa were called at the time, was inspired and began shortly after Napoleon's Egyptian escapades prior to his time as emperor. It would continue throughout the 19th Century.

All that being said, it seems strange to see such an exotic piece hanging outside a museum in a library in the middle of Indiana. Even if it shares space with artworks of or by such local luminaries as painter Will Vawter and poet James Whitcomb Riley.

The artwork hangs in a prominent spot of the history room, treasured under glass, within a sturdy golden frame with an engraved plate reading Street Scene, Algiers,  Richard Brown Black, 1988 – 1915.

Who Was Richard Brown Black?

The first mention of Greenfield, Indiana native Richard Brown Black in Indiana newspapers is the June 24, 1909, Cambridge City Tribune.  His story starts with the news as follows,

“Richard Black, of Greenfield, a talented and successful young artist, who has spent several years abroad in the study of his profession, is here the guest of his relatives, Mr. and Mrs. M. L. Bowmaster.”

The next year, the July 3, 1910, Muncie Star reports, amid a column containing various horrific tragedies reported around the state, a bit of good news from Greenfield,

“Richard Black, whose home is in this city, and who is studying art in Paris, has had the sketch, An Old Fashioned Fireplace accepted for a place in the Paris salon.” 

A few years later, in an article titled 'Recognition as Painter' in the April 1, 1914, Indianapolis News, Black's burgeoning art career is reported,

“Richard Black...who for some years has been an art student in Paris, is receiving substantial recognition as a painter.  He has just sold two canvases exhibited in this year's orientalist salon, one to the French government and one to Georges Leggeus, the well-known French art connoisseur...Mr. Black is only twenty-five years old, and his success is regarded as remarkable. Until recently he had given most of his time and talent to etching.”

His participation in the prestigious annual French exhibition is reported in the April 12, 1914, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette,

“Paris, April 11. – Richard Black, of Indiana, is among the American artists, who have exhibits in the national salon of fine arts, which opens (in Paris, April 12, 1914).”

A year later, Black exhibited in the 8th Annual Indiana Artists show at the Herron Art Institute. His work was reviewed by the art writer, Rena Tucker Kohlmann, in The Indianapolis News,  March 13, 1915,

“Among the younger artists in the state, the work of Richard Black, of Greenfield, is noticeably good. His Street in Algiers is excellent, and his etchings, Grain Market, Lousse and In the Souks – Tunis are interesting notes...”

The Pride of Greenfield.

A palpable city pride for the accomplishment of the young artist is observed in the reporting of the Herron exhibition by the Greenfield Republican, April 1, 1915,

“Those of our citizens who have visited the exhibition of the works of Indiana artists at the Herron Art Institute, at Indianapolis, have been especially interested in the three pictures by Richard Black, of this city. Mr. Black, who has lived abroad many years, is at present ill at his home on Douglas street.

Two of the pictures are etchings of unusual merit, and were in the 1914 salon des Beaux Arts of Paris. The one oil painting is of a distinctive character – a harmonious representation of a street scene in Algiers. This painting was first exhibited in the 1913 salon in Paris and in 1914 it was selected by the Paris jury of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to represent the Paris group of American painters, and was well hung in the Pennsylvania exhibit.

Mr. Black's pictures show that he is a thoroughly equipped artist. In his works, we see picturesque composition, good drawing, exquisite harmony of low-keyed color, and fine technique. Those who have been fortunate enough to see Mr. Black's pictures know how justly proud Greenfield will be of her talented young artist.”

Sadly, within days, and during the run of the exhibition, Richard Brown Black would pass away at his family home in Greenfield, as reported in the April 5, 1915, Greenfield Republican,

“Richard Black, age 26 years, died at 4 o'clock Wednesday morning at the Black home on North Spring street...of tuberculosis, following a long illness. The deceased was born in Greenfield, June 3, 1889, the son of Richard A. and Ione Black. His father, who was a prominent attorney, died in 1900, and a few years later the widow and her children went to Europe where the children were educated.  They lived abroad about twelve years. 

For the past five years Richard A.(sic) Black was a student of art...He spent two years in Africa and painted many views of northern Africa. 

He returned to his home in this city last summer and had been sick since that time. While there had been but little if any hope for his recovery, still his death at this time was unexpected, as he had seemed to be better, especially on Tuesday, and his brother, Thomas, who had been here several days, left at 7 o'clock Tuesday evening for Columbia University, where he is a student. The deceased leaves the mother, one brother, Thomas, and two sisters, Nelle(sic?) Black...and Mrs. Kelsey Flower...”   

The death was also reported April 17, 1915,  by The Indianapolis News,

“Greenfield, Ind., April 7. – Richard B. Black, age twenty-seven, an artist of note, died today at the home of his mother, Mrs. Ione Black, in this city.

Two of his pictures were sold to the French government a year ago, and three are now on exhibition at the Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis...

Mr. Black was in northern Africa two years, and painted many scenes there.

Mr. Black was educated in Germany and Paris, where he spent twelve years. He returned to this city last summer, afflicted with tuberculosis. He was the son of Richard A. Black and was unmarried...”

The Algiers painting's eventual location in the library is explained in a September 2, 1915 article in the Greenfield Republican, 

“An oil painting, the work of the late Richard Brown Black, has been hung in the public library. Mr. Black was born in Greenfield, but spent most of his life in study abroad. He was an artist of rare ability, and had he lived he would have achieved a high place among American artists. His death, which occurred last spring, is greatly to be lamented. The picture which hangs in the library is a street scene in Algiers....

Mr. Black gave the picture to Miss Lizzie Harris, of this city. Because of his esteem for his native city and a desire that his work may be seen and appreciated by the people, Miss Harris has hung it in the library as a memorial to him.”

Although it is not clear from the newspaper articles, one stating an age of 26 years and one 27. If Mr. Black had been born in June 1889 and died in April 1915, he would have been 25.

Posthumous Honor and Family Tragedy.

Ione Brown Black of Greenfield, Indiana,
mother of Richard Brown Black 

Almost a decade later, on August 10, 1922, the Greenfield Republican reported an update regarding the the work of the fallen artist,

“Word has been received here from Mrs. Ione Black, who has made her home for several years in the country around the Mediterranean Sea, that a painting by her son, the late Richard Black, has been given recognition by the French government and is to hang in one of the government buildings until twenty years from the date of Mr. Black's death, when it is to be transferred to the chambers of the Louvre, where it will hang among the works of the greatest artists of Europe and of the world...

One of his best paintings, a North African landscape subject, and very similar to the one honored by the French government, hangs in the local public library, a gift from the family...(the Greenfield library painting) has opportunity to become one of the most highly regarded and prized possessions of the city.”   

In a horrifying turn of events, within a few years, Richard Black's sister Nellie, along with her two young children, would be murdered by her husband, the children's father, in New Orleans. Reported in the May 16, 1925, Indianapolis News, 

“Nellie Black Peckham, who with her two small children, was killed in New Orleans Friday by Professor George W. Peckham, her husband, was the daughter of Alexander and Ione Black of this city. Mr. Black, for many years a prominent attorney of Hancock county, was killed twenty years ago in Indianapolis when he struck a telephone pole while stepping from a moving interurban car.

Mrs. (Black) Peckham, her two children and (Mr.) Peckham were found at the Peckham home in New Orleans, dead of bullet wounds. The coroner decided it was a triple murder and a suicide case. Peckham is said to have been deranged.”

This horrific postscript serves to illustrate the level of tragedy the Black family had suffered for a period of years. But also, adds mystery to the whereabouts of certain artworks by Richard Brown Black.  The Greenfield Daily Reporter ran a similar article, also on May 16, 1925, about the New Orleans killings, and ended with this note,

“While last in Greenfield Mrs. Peckham removed to her home in the South some of the pictures by her brother.”

Additional Biographical Details.

On the occasion of his posthumous participation in a three person art exhibit in 1928 in Richmond, Indiana, additional biographic details of Richard Brown Black are learned. The  March 3, 1928, Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram reported,

“An exhibition of oil paintings, watercolors and etchings, the works of Miss Olive Rush of Santa Fe, N. Mex., R.B. Gruelle, one of Indiana's early Hoosier Group, and Richard Brown Black, a young artist who painted during the early part  of the 20th century, will be open to the public ...in the art galleries of Morton high school...

Although just a very young painter when he died, Richard Brown Black, whose collection of oil paintings, etchings and water colors, mostly of foreign subjects, are a part the exhibition...

His oils show his profound feeling for exquisite color harmony. His choice of subject is varied and usually interesting. A delightful crispness prevails in his water colors, many of them preliminary sketches for his oil paintings.

Black was born in Greenfield, Ind. On June 3, 1888. All his art education was obtained in France. In 1903, at the age of 15 he entered the Beaux Arts of Avignon, and remained there for two years. The following year, 1905-1906, he traveled through Spain, Northern Africa and Italy. It was in Rome, in 1906, that he learned to etch. During the year 1906-1907, he was a pupil of Jean-Paul Laurens at the Academie Julien in Paris. After a stay of two years in the United States, he returned to Paris and was admitted at the (Fernand) Cormon studio in the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts (1909).

Until that time, he had worked only in drawing (charcoal, pencil, pen and ink), water color and etching; it was Cormon who insisted that he had the eye and the manner of an oil painter. The great French master was proud of his 'find,' for he soon considered his American pupil as one, if not the most, promising in his studio. 

After 1911, his health obliged him to live most of the time in Southern France and Northern Africa, where the majority of his work was done. 

Each time he returned to Paris, he showed all the work he done  to Cormon, and the master invariably had nothing but praise. On one occasion, he paid the American artist a compliment that probably was unique to the painter's career. 

'Black,' he said, 'your conception of painting is altogether different from mine, but if I were young, I don't know  but what I'd choose yours.'”  

 A week later on March 10, the same newspaper provided a more detailed review of the show,

“Along the east wall and on panels on the north and south walls are hung the 43 works of art by Richard Black, which is only a small number compared to the many pieces of work he produced before reaching the age of 25 years. One marvels at the quality of painting beautiful warm color harmonies and fine drawing displayed by so young an artist. It is a manifestation of his genius and of what he probably would have achieved had he lived longer.

Upon showing his likeness and aptness in making pictures while a very young boy, Mr. Black's mother became thoroughly interested and consequently, gave him all opportunities and advantages of the best art schools and masters of painting in France. He was a consistent and rapid worker, always well liked by his associates and made great progress in his art expression.

Practically all the paintings and etchings of R. B. Black are in New York, and with two exceptions, the present exhibit contains only work that was left in his Greenfield studio...(the exceptions) The Port of Algiers...was in the Salon des Orientalistes of 1914. Later it was informally accepted by the late Leonce Benedite, curator of the Luxembourgh museum, to be added to the American School in the gallery.  His Street in Algiers...was in the Paris Salon of 1913...”   

A complete and invaluably list of the Richard Black works in the exhibition is included in the March 24, 1928 coverage of the exhibit in The Indianapolis Star. Of particular note are the oil paintings, reported in the art column as follows; Portrait, Gaby, Louise, Vaison - France, Fruit Merchant – Tunis, Constantine, Port of Algiers and Street in Algiers (the Greenfield library painting).

Although his life was cut short by illness and death, the sublime vision of Richard Brown Black lives on, in a painting of stunning beauty in central Indiana. He, and his painting, the color of perpetual sun.

Mark Diekhoff, November 2025  

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.

The Epic Dramas of Artist Elmer Taflinger – Act Six

The Ruins, Holliday Park, Indianapolis, designed by Elmer Taflinger
photo by the author, 2025

 

Puff Breathing Dragons.

For many years, and particularly during the 1960s, Elmer Taflinger was ever-present in a daily human interest Indianapolis Star column penned by Lowell Nussbaum. Nussbaum had a varied career before seeking out work as a journalist, which he pursued in Chicago, Indianapolis, Toledo then back for good in Indianapolis. The homespun column he would be known for, The Things I Hear!, ran in The Star from 1945 through 1971.

It is almost as if there was a direct telephone connection between between Nussbaum and Taflinger during those years. A red phone, hot-line that either man could call the other, when caught in a bind.  Taflinger, when he needed a little shot of dopamine, or Nussbaum, when he was running a little low on material. 

The Taflinger mentions in The Things I Hear! could be categorized as one of several common types;  know-it-all, gadfly, comic or eccentric.

For example, in the comic vein, in a November 1959 column, Nussbaum relays the following for his daily readers,

“Elmer Taflinger tells of the woman who wished a portrait of herself to give her husband. She said she would pay a handsome fee 'if you'll make me look 10 years younger.'

'Tell you what I'll do,' replied the artist, 'I'll paint you as you are today and you can give it to your husband 10 years from now.' ”

And on June 14, 1960, Nussbaum's column contained,

“Everything happened to Artist Elmer Taflinger while he was painting a picture of the Meridian Street Methodist Church last week.

During the painting, he nearly was run over by a woman riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. Then the frame slipped from the easel while Taflinger was leaning over. The heavy frame bopped him in the head, cutting a gash. 

To cap the climax, he learned later he had painted the wrong church.”

Taflinger as an expert on all things is demonstrated on August 8, 1962, when the artist corrects the columnist, as Nussbaum writes,

“Elmer Taflinger straightens out Friday's off-the-cuff quotation, 'All is not gold that glitters.'

The last word is 'glisters', not glitters, Elmer reminds. 'It's from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Act II.'

Can I help it if Shakespeare didn't know how to spell glisten?”

And again in the column, March 1, 1966, when Nussbaum writes,

“An American touring Europe can 'read' the road signs without difficulty, even though he doesn't speak the language. But a foreigner trying to drive here is in for trouble.

Elmer Taflinger, Indianapolis artist, feels European signs are a lot safer than ours because they wordless, and the driver can tell their message at a glance...

How much simpler that is than our multiplicity of verbose signs which take our attention from driving while we read them.”

Taflinger as Lowell-appointed art expert can be seen in the January 16, 1969 column where Nussbaum bumbles his facts,

“Elmer Taflinger, the Indianapolis artist, blew his beret when he heard that Jan van der Marck, Chicago artist, whose 'thing' is wrapping entire buildings in canvas or paper, is to judge the Indiana Artists Exhibit in March.

Elmer's comment: 'Why don't they wrap him in canvas, head and all, and let him choose the winning painting by the touch system?' ”

Nussbaum had to correct himself in a later column, noting that van der Marck was actually director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and it was that museum building that then unknown artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, would wrap in 1969, in what become an international art world sensation.

Despite his glib dismissal of Christo, Jeanne-Claude and van der Marck, and what would be seen by history as their monumental achievement in Chicago, Taflinger, seemingly unfettered by humility or self-awareness, would  continue to plod on and perform the role of a know-it-all and art sage in Indianapolis. It would be his most common persona to appear in the press in his latter days as grand man of local arts.

In June of 1959, he would comment on the semi-circular design of alleyway pavement near the downtown Bankers Trust Building as “not limited to Germans,” but  Parisian as well. He provided pictorial proof and elucidated further regarding why the stones are laid in curves, “(cobblestones are) made by hand of very hard stone, (they) don't break exactly square...one side usually being wider than the other. And they just naturally work out better in a curves line.”

In an equally esoteric proclamation contained in a Nussbaum column in January of 1961, Taflinger, on the occasion of the demolition of the elaborate Marion County Courthouse which had stood since 1876, and was replaced by today's City County Building, lectured on the original building materials of the razed structure. The 'marble' walls of the structure were actually Keene's cement, a white gypsum powder, plaster-like material invented in England around 1840. And the stone pillars on the building's exterior were not granite, but rather something called Scotch marble, whatever that was.

In September 1962, Taflinger's opinion about the then current renovation to the Indianapolis Central Library was quoted. Nussbaum memorializes Taflinger's eye-in-the-sky remark to a workman on the scene, “This is one of most beautiful buildings in town, and it's a shame to spoil its appearance.” The workman's down-to-earth reply, “I don't know about that, Mister. But it has more waste space in it than any building in town.”

Even up to the last year of his life, Taflinger would be sharing an obtuse and mocking observation about a new public sculpture in town, Untitled (L's).  In Marion Garmel's 'Brush Strokes' column in the September 17, 1980, Indianapolis News, she reports what may be Taflinger's final words on art,

“Elmer Taflinger, the city's self-appointed guardian of artistic standards, says he has come up with the hidden secret in the sculpture designed by David von Schlegell, for the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis library.

The work, which went up last week, involves three L-shaped stainless steel pieces placed in a triangular pattern on the library plaza. It is said to be based on the 3-4-5 triangle of Pythagoras with the ratio in the distance from the base of one vertical shaft to the next – in this case 138 feet by 184 feet by 230 feet...

'So what you do,' says Taflinger, 'is divide each figure by 2. Then divide the smallest figure by 3, the next smallest by 4 and the largest by 5. What do you get? 23. And that's the meaning of it. When the sculptor gets his check, he'll be saying 23-skidoo.' ”

 

Curtain Call.

Threading through Taflinger's newspaper mentions, despite his showboat tenancies and his obvious affinity for press coverage, is his expertise in the classics, his drive toward preservation, and his Quixotic impossible dreams. 

Those elemental forces would combine and give meaning to the last act of his life, his final artistic statement, and the one that still endures at Holliday Park. 

It would begin in 1958, when Western Electric purchased the St. Paul Building in New York City's financial district as the location for their future modern office headquarters. The St. Paul was historical in several regards, primarily in that it was one of the very first skyscrapers in the city, and also that its facade contained sculptural components by renowned architectural artist, Karl T. Bitter. A preservation committee was established to place the important components of the building's artistry to further use at some other site, putting out a call for proposals. 

And so it was that Elmer Taflinger and Indianapolis architect David V. Burns would design a grotto and reflecting pond at Holliday Park in the city's northwest-side as a submission to the committee. 

According to the March 6, 1959 Indianapolis Star, the  Taflinger/Burns design won out over those by several different cities and universities, and over Idlewild Airport and the United Nations. 

Burns was to leave the project shortly thereafter, and it would be up to Taflinger to fight for money, implement the installation, and ultimately conclude the project, although to his mind, in an abbreviated, unfinished state some fifteen years later.

Perhaps Taflinger was first attracted to the project to preserve the important architectural elements contained in the facade of the St. Paul Building because of the sculpted figures. Arguably, the spectacular three colossi by renowned  artist Karl Bitter, deserved better then the wrecking ball. The three stone behemoths had held up the world on their shoulders for nearly sixty years, after all.

Or maybe because these same sculptural elements portrayed a trilogy of men, mankind as a Vitruvian multiplicity, much like Taflinger had painted as a centerpiece, the Leonardo da Vinci three-faced head, in his Apotheosis of Science mural years before.

A more mysterious fate may have been playing its hand, though, in attracting Taflinger to the project. 

The St. Paul Building, one of New York City's first skyscrapers, was built in 1898. It towered to a height of 22 stories, when nothing else did. As such, it was one of the nation's first buildings to, like Icarus, reach for the sun. That foolish ambition of architect, artist and dreamer alike. 

The building was named for its location near St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway in Lower Manhattan. Granted, not the mid-town Taflinger knew in his many years in the city with Belasco and his theater, but on Broadway, nonetheless. 

Further, the exact spot of the building was the former location of a tourist trap called Barnum's American Museum, and then, when the Barnum building burned down, the New York Herald newspaper. Much as the St. Paul Building had a foundation built upon prior hucksterism and newsprint, Taflinger himself had created a career hobbled atop a similar footing. 

A March 6, 1959, Indianapolis Star article detailed the progress of the early days of the project,

“A Brooklyn stone firm is readying three 10-ton statues by the late world-famed architect Karl Bitter for their journey by truck to Indianapolis, where they will be installed in splendor at Holliday Park...Made of Indiana limestone, they are valued at more than $150,000...The statues represent workman of the world's three major races.

(Elmer) Taflinger will supervise the project to its completion...”

Just a few months later, the same paper reported a possible delay in the project in their July 24 edition,

“Plans for construction of a reflective pool in Holliday Park to house three famous statues have been delayed because of the artist's insistence that the pool must contain a giant spray splashing a 40-minute message in Morse code.  

Elmer E. Taflinger, world-famed Indianapolis artist, told the park board the 100-foot spray in Morse code is a 'definite must' if the proper setting is to be provided for the 51-year-old figures.

'We can cut down every place else, but if we are to have something distinctive – something different from anything else in the world – we must have these two jet sprays,' Taflinger said.”

The bizarre demand seems a strange sort of personal homage, to Taflinger's boyhood and lifelong love of electronics, as opposed to a universal or aesthetic statement in full service of the project. But who's to know. Most novel thoughts sound crazy at first. 

Whatever Taflinger's rationale, it all came down to money. Taflinger's construction proposal was at $180,000 and the city's budget was no more than $100,000.

Perhaps it was a tempest in a teapot devised by Taflinger to stir up controversy and public interest. Whether or not contrived, the story was carried by the wire service UPI and a blurb went out across the country and was widely reported. The July 25, 1959, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph is one such example with a small, below the fold, front-page piece as follows,

“Indianapolis, Ind. – City officials today studied a suggestion by artist Elmer Taflinger that the city build a park fountain of 100-foot high columns of water spelling out 'the prayer of the world' in Morse code.”

Lost in the story were the Bitter sculptures, but covered was Taflinger's name and his hair-brained sounding scheme.

A year or so later, the project was still delayed according to the June 12, 1960, Indianapolis Star,

“Three famous statues which have sat in crates at Holliday Park for 14 months probably will stay that way for quite a while... 

...the statues have remained in their crates while a slow-motion debate went on about how elaborate the setting should be. (Artist, designer, installer) Taflinger wanted 'the works,' including colored lights and a fountain that would squirt out the letter 'V' in Morse code.”

The eventual progress of the project was documented in a photograph in the August 17, 1961 Indianapolis News which showed the first statue being lowered into place on the constructed base work, largely complete.

Just two years later, the project would be subject of stark criticism in The Star, when they would report on September 29, 1963, 

“What was once planned as a cultural showplace for Indianapolis, a grotto in Holliday Park for the famous Karl Bitter statues, now is a neglected, barren and meaningless exhibit, serving primarily as a potential death trap for youngsters.”

The photo that accompanied the article contained the warning, “Loose Stones Pose Danger To Adventuresome Children.”  The article further reports that “Records show that at least two legal suits are pending against the city because youngsters  have fallen from the dangerous memorial.”

By 1973, final funding was being arranged for a scaled-back fountain in the hopes of a belated dedication of the site soon to follow.

Finally, in November 1974, with only landscaping yet to be completed, Elmer Taflinger, along with Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar, and U.S Representative William Hudnut participated in a tree-planting ceremony at The Ruins at Holliday Park. The three trees planted possessed a symbolic and esoteric meaning for Taflinger, which he tried to explain, but sort of failed, in the accompanying Indianapolis Star article on November 4, 1974. 

Deus Ex Machina.

Elmer Taflinger turned from art to words his last decade or so. His late life's work, The Ruins, were nearly complete by the 1970s, and since he was in his eighties, chances were, so was his life. A last straw came along that broke something in him that explained his change in course. Leave it to Lowell Nussbaum to score the scoop, when he wrote in his January 23, 1969, The Things I Hear! column,

“Something which Elmer Taflinger, prominent artist and art instructor, said the other day puzzled me...

'Elmer,' I said, 'what did you mean when you said to refer to you as a writer rather than an artist?'

'It's like this,' he explained. 'In a long career as an artist, I have won some prizes, but never a top prize. The nearest I ever came was in Chicago. The judges selected my painting – a nude – as best but the show manager rejected the award because he didn't think he could get a picture of a nude reproduced in a newspaper. So they gave me a special award and hung my picture behind a potted palm.'

And then Elmer got down to the point of his story:

'Last summer, my sister (retired Manual High School history teacher, Mrs. Robt. L Black), entered one of her paintings in the State Fair art show. She won the sweepstakes award in the amateur division.

They gave her a silver tray and a rosette almost as large as the picture. That did it. I decided right then to forget art and stick to writing my autobiography.'

The postscript to his lament:

'And I framed the picture for her.' ”  

So words it was, from there on out.

In his interviews and the articles written about him, even those quoting him directly, words were rarely adequate to express the depth of Taflinger's mind, the breadth of his insight. 

Elmer Taflinger was to struggle in the last years of his life to complete his memoir, a gargantuan 1600 page manuscript called Revolting Hoosier. Sadly, he was apparently unable to rein in and organize his overflowing thoughts and ideas during his lifetime, and the manuscript remains unpublished.

Perhaps his last great regret was not finishing the book. Or maybe, as he was to suggest in several late interviews, that the city did not fund The Ruins to the perfection in his mind's eye. The bizarre perfection on the outer limits of his hazy vision for a prayer in stone, trees and water, for the people of the world, broadcast in perpetuity from our Circle City crossroads, from Holliday Park on Earth, as it is in heaven. 

Epitaf.

In the August 30, 1970, Indianapolis Star interview by Lloyd B. Walton, the lifelong Taflinger mystery is described,

“Since boyhood Taflinger has pursued a will-o'-the-wisp idea – something he wanted but couldn't quite figure out. Something he needed, but couldn't define.” 

Taflinger alludes to the hidden secret of his life with scattered clues in his many newspaper articles over the many decades.

A love of three, his epitaph, yearning for the fourth. A trinity of ruined giants, that only you, a human soul, can perfect.

Taflinger was no lone wolf, nor was he a team player. It was always he and the other. 

The other of his model. Of his students. 

The other of a group of friends at the restaurant. The crowd at the fair. A mob lining the streets at a Christmas parade. 

The other of his public, his newspaper readers.  The reporters with their notepads and tape recorders, and the Morse code he played like a fiddle. 

Always he and his other.

Ever-changing, ever-complex – like abalone –possessing and reflecting an iridescent beauty from inside out.   

His Ruins  –  a graveyard – not of sorrow or regret, or even wary sadness.  But a park of wonder, and respite, of inspiration and admiration. For all men and women who carry the world on their shoulders and aspire for the sky. 

Amen.

Mark Diekhoff, November 2025

Dedicated to Edward John Diekhoff, Jr.  1938 - 2025

See Also:

Dawn Mitchell, Indy Star, How 'The Ruins' at Holliday Park took decades to complete

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