Peg Fierke Art – Part Five

Double Silt Experiment, 2000, Peg Fierke

A Tribute to the World.

Peg Fierke's mature career works, most all, are inspired by a natural environment.  An environment of interrelation and interconnection.  A colorful, beautiful tapestry of pattern and form.  She will never tire of its complexity, We see a delight captured by her eye, and woven into her images. Neither brevity nor boredom are ever contained in her work. 

Often her drawings, prints and paintings are almost entirely abstracted from the nature of their origin though. Symbol is devoured by suchness, label by layers.  

Small things are shown large. Things are displaced and move here to there. Scattered things come together. Gathered things split apart. Things multiply or simplify. 

Dimensions collapse, eons of time become instant, before and after are marginalized, the now is the moment of her works. 

Evolving Emphasis.

The December 28, 1989 North Vernon (IN) Plain Dealer previewed an upcoming exhibition in Columbus, Indiana for the following weeks. The short article explained,

“The Indianapolis Museum of Art – Columbus Gallery presents ...Artists Who Are Women...

The show includes a selection of contemporary paintings and sculptures...(that)...emphasize the many ways in which women have expanded the traditional imagery of contemporary American art. 

The exhibition is curated by Holliday T. Day, IMA curator of contemporary art... ”

The article describes some of the artists and the expanded themes,

“Works by Miriam Schapiro, Joyce Kozloff and Lynda Benglis emphasize the role pattern and decoration in art. Paintings by Hollis Sigler and Darinka Novitovic explore the power of personal dreams, while the works by Vija Celmins, Daisy Youngblood, Jackie Ferrara and Peg Fierke explore interior life in a more meditative manner.” 

The Columbus (IN) newspaper, The Republic, ran a review and story on February 8, 1990, that mentions Peg's Fierke's contribution as one of the highlights, specifically an untitled work from 1989 described briefly as a charcoal “scribbling of lines and shapes.”

Just a month later, and continuing that spring, a barrage of newspaper articles would cover additional exhibitions and a symposium on women in the arts and related subjects taking place in Indianapolis.

Marion Garmel in her Brush Strokes column in The News was the first to provide background for the various related events, on March 29, 1990. It all began with the death of an artist, as she explained,

“Sylvia Kolyer was an East German refugee who came to Central Indiana in the 1970s and decided to pursue a career in art...(She) ...graduated...from the Herron School of Art...in 1981.

(She)...shared a studio for awhile in the Morris Building (later known as the Faris Building) before Kolyer's husband was transferred to (Kansas), where Kolyer promptly enrolled in the University of Wichita to work on a master of fine arts degree.

Then she was dead. At age 45, in 1986...(possibly) caused by the toxicity of the art materials she used.” 

The Garmel article discusses how Kolyer overcame various obstacles related to being a mother and wife, and a student and artist, raising two young children and living in small town Indiana. Nevertheless, she was able to carve out a niche, to make room, to follow her dream of a fine arts career. 

Kolyer had tasted success and made friends while in Indiana despite the brevity of her stay.

The article quotes Linda Haas, director of women's studies at IUPUI, about the genesis of the planned tribute exhibition for Kolyer and related events,

“...Sylvia herself obviously touched a lot of people very deeply while she was here. 

Some were collectors of her art. Some had her in class. She left such an influence on them that they were happy...(to organize and present the events)...as a testimonial to her and to Indiana women's contributions.”

Garmel elaborates on the various events planned,

“Somewhere along the way, the planning committee decided that instead of simply having a Kolyer memorial exhibit, they would turn the whole thing a celebration and serious study of women artists.”

A solo show of Kolyer's painting would be held at the Executive Conference Center at IUPUI.  

Border Crossing: Indiana Women and Art, a juried exhibit of work by present and former Indiana residents would be held at Gallery of Frame Designs on Massachusetts Avenue, and would include work by Kolyer and 17 other artists. 

Women artists on the planning committee excluded themselves from the Border Crossing show. But many were gathered in a show called Indiana Women Artists: An Invitational Show at Editions Ltd. on the north side. 

Since Peg Fierke was on the planning committee, she was represented in the Editions Ltd. show.

Finally, author, artist, teacher Suzi Gablik would be a keynote speaker at the symposium and discuss her two books; The Re-enchantment of Art and Has Modernism Failed?

Additional speakers presented talk topics including; Is There a Feminist Aesthetic?, Women in the Arts Curriculum, Making Art a Priority in Our Lives, Collecting, Exhibiting and Selling Women's Art in Indiana, and Women Weaving Visions: Women's Art as Spiritual Transformation. 

In a Weekend Section front page feature by Steve Mannheimer, in the April 6, Indianapolis Star, he reviews the Border Crossing show and also discusses author Gablik's views about an evolving art worldscape at the time,

“Gablik, in a telephone interview from her home in Virginia, said that her main thesis is that modern culture is 'moving out of the modern industrial era into an ecological era.'

That move is accompanied by 'a shift in world view that is basically going to affect our whole values system.'  and which will highlight the fact that our culture has 'no collective project.'

Gablik said that the past few decades have witnessed the 'breakdown of the model of the artist as a solitary hero working outside of society.' That stereotype was 'transformed into the model of the professional artist getting his slides and CV...in order to attract curators and critics.'

Gablik offers the next step that evolution: Artists who embrace 'compassionate action that intervenes directly into the world and helps to heal it.' ”     

On April 11, in The News, Marion Garmel reviews Indiana Women Artists: An Invitational Show which was also curated by Holliday T. Day. 

Peg Fierke was invited and participated in the exhibit, about which Garmel writes,

“Peg Fierke's intriguing tear-shaped patterned paintings, where larger and larger patterns emerge from the divisions in the smaller ones.”

(A large charcoal drawing from around this period is below)

Cytophenocrysts, 1991, Peg Fierke, charcoal

On April 22, Steve Mannheimer's column in The Star would cover the same show. Although he does not discuss Fierke's work with specification, he does write her paintings and those by other artists in the show “...offer solid, thoughtful, emotionally resonant experiences.” 

For the duration of the 1990s and forward, Fierke would continue to exhibit and also act as a curator and juror for shows and lecture on art.  

This latter period of her career, although less easy to follow in an ever diminishing art coverage in newspapers, is where her current retrospective exhibition picks up, showing many works from about 1995 through the 2000s.

An Unfinished Retrospective.

A survey of art produced over the career of the late Margaret D. 'Peg' Fierke is currently on display in the Marsh Gallery at Herron School of Art and Design. 

Evidence of Things Unseen shows a variety of techniques, primarily drawing, painting and printmaking. The exhibition statement that accompanies the show emphasizes not only her art and its influences, but also the artist and her association as a teacher of printmaking at Herron for nearly four decades. To quote the statement directly,

“This exhibition offers an opportunity to encounter both the remarkable body of work she created, and the lasting impact of a life dedicated to curiosity, experimentation, and creative inquiry.”

The show is limited to works that were in the artist's studio and estate, so it does not include any works borrowed from public or private collections. Perhaps a more comprehensive Peg Fierke retrospective will be organized in the future to include some of her remarkable works owned by Newfields and other private and public collections. 

(Fierke's beautiful painting What Goes Around is in the Richmond Art Museum collection, image here) 

It would be amazing to see more of the large colorful paintings and early works on paper, and sculptures, described in the art press over the years. 

Until such time, we must relish what is presented in the Herron Galleries show.

It includes an assortment of sketches, doodles, and more refined drawings, as well as etchings and mixed media works – presented loose and unframed on low display tables in the center of the room. 

Among the items are the original copper plates, first engraved then etched, for Module/Mass (discussed earlier) and the beguiling Asymmetrical Self, 1999, now in the Newfields collection (see here).    

Besides the stunning color in the painting Double Silt Experiment (top of page and discussed below), the exhibit is a study in monochrome, showcasing many large graphite and charcoal works, including  Monads and Antinomy, both charcoals from 1995, and the massive undated horizontal, Rock Wall #1, pencil and charcoal. 

As previously mentioned, these are mostly pieces from Fierke's latter career from about 1995 forward. Three large works from the 2000s are astonishing in the ornate complexity they possess. Bone-like forms and outright partial skeletons are intrinsic to these pieces. 

Double Silt Experiment (detail), Peg Fierke

Double Silt Experiment, 2000, oil on canvas, seems to imagine life preserved, or at least the wonder of its essence captured and contained. 

It's not fossilization, but reorganization – experimentation. 

A large, dispersing rib cage form hangs suspended in sedimentary layers of green and brown. Is Fierke showing her own experiment? Or referencing the genesis of life itself from an intelligent design of clay and bone? Or something more personal, and individual to each viewer?

Maine Triangle, 2006, projects its masts upward amid a charcoal mosaic of organized chaos. Everything is everything is everything, we don't know why. 

Maine Triangle, 2006, Peg Fierke

A mystery of bones and a hand waving from the dark of a shelter or a boat. Some compartment of man-made straight lines, anyway. The world outside is of interrelated completion, primordial and whole.   

With the the large charcoal drawing, Fusion of Two Low Entropy Systems, 2006, Fierke seems to return to her earliest imaginings of a paradox or riddle, at least in the title. The name seems akin to her quirky early works which combined organic things with sterile industrial environments. 

Fusion of Two Low Entropy Systems, Peg Fierke

But then again, she always had a way with names.

It may be as simple as charcoal, the medium, and bone, the subject. Two stable substances that left on their own will remain as they are for a long time. Fusion is the action, the catalyst, the process. Fusion is the alchemy, the roll to the rock.    

One thinks, in looking at Peg Fierke's works and walking around her show, that she was a melder and a merger. Like Mother Nature, a consummate multi-tasker. Her many things of earth are stacked together, compressed together, on the surface of her pictures. Often  we don't know what we see, other than marvelous color, movement and form. With an infant's eyes, we wonder.

Beauty, for her, the flow of grain on wood, the bones within a skeleton. Allusions to other patterned mysteries like the pull of gravity, the effect of magnetism on iron shavings or a rainstorm's vibrating ripples on water. Universal multitudes, or separate things together, sublime. 

Her artworks are like the layers of of the earth that preserve a whole history of vibrant living in their rocky remnants.  Her works too, serve as record and mirror her many interests and fascinations. From spontaneous and joyful experiments to a tough virtuosity earned by a devotion to hard work, and everything in between. Its all there.

We see, lines and marks first noticed, then chosen, and put to paper. Finally, fully arranged, and look, they're alive. 

In Peg Fierke's work we see an artist with the intelligence of a lab technician, with with the eye and song of a poet, with the heart of healer and the stamina of a Marathon runner.  Breathing in, breathing out, one step then another, 26 miles later, voila...

(Title not Available) - postcard detail, Peg Fierke
from the exhibition Inside/Outside, 2016
Shircliff Gallery, Vincennes University

Mark Diekhoff, July 2026

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 Art of Carla Knopp - Part Four

Corporeality, Carla Knopp, 1999

Avenue of Lost and Change.

By 1995, the downtown Indianapolis gallery scene was evolving. Places were closing and places were opening on Massachusetts Avenue. Re-locations were occurring away from that Avenue to Vermont Street and Alabama Avenue. Two large art enclaves, also downtown, were gaining steam nearby with the Stutz Building to the west and the Faris Building to the south.

As Carla Knopp continued her decade-long art journey through a changing art world, Steve Mannheimer reflected on the same prior ten years of the downtown Indianapolis art scene up to that point in the mid '90s. His observations were contained in the preamble to his review of two shows opening in April 1995, one of which was at Utrillo Gallery, an upstart space owned and ran by Greg Brown on the city's Near Eastside. 

The column's title was Local art scene is still jumping but not on Mass Ave and appeared in the April 9, 1995, Indianapolis Star. 

In just a few opening paragraphs, he described the state of the city's contemporary art scene of the prior ten years,

“During the last half of the 1980s, the health of the local art scene was gauged by the traffic through the galleries along Massachusetts Avenue. Opening night block parties did not always generate sales, but the masses on Mass. Ave. created the perception that art was...indispensable...

There was even a sort of local 'school' …, particularly the younger painters, who exhibited on Massachusetts.

It never attained nor aspired to the status of an official Indianapolis style – but...(this group) reinforced some mutual tendencies, toward painterly technique, vaguely disquieting content and a distant kinship to the expressionistic tone of the national scene of the day.

Some of the those galleries have disappeared. Others have evolved. Artists who had hoped those bubbly times would elevate their careers have been mostly disappointed.” 

The savvy real estate entrepreneurs and developers had a master plan as early as their first lease on that street to Patrick King in 1983, as covered earlier in this blog.  That plan was coming to fruition. It was a common multi-stage plan of gentrification using art and artists as the fuel, an early catalyst, and, like a rocket ship, when the boost of the first stage was spent, they would be shed away, cast off by stratospheric rent hikes, and abandoned to float or sink.

Essential, Folk, Outsider and Found.

So amid the change of this period, Greg Brown's Utrillo Gallery opened in 1995.  It would be an important venue for the work of Carla Knopp.

The location at 2630 East 10th Street was in an untapped art area of the Near Eastside.  

According to a March 16, 1997, Indianapolis Star feature article about him and his gallery by S. L. Berry,  Brown described the plentiful storefronts and cheap rents, and saw not only a prime location for his gallery, but for a future alternative scene to add to Mass Ave area and the loft buildings. 

An early and essential show at Utrillo was covered by Steve Mannheimer in the April 9, 1995, Indianapolis Star mentioned above.  

That show, World in Balance was an exhibition that,

“...features a dozen or so mobiles and collages by Indianapolis artist Gwendolyn Skaggs...

Gravity provides the only glue. Everything is suspended by a thread or loose wire and hangs together only by the grace of a still room...

Skaggs likes the precariousness of it all."

Mannheimer then quotes the artist and concludes his thoughts, 

" 'For each of these objects there is only one direction and one position in which it can hang. It fits my concept of living.'

...Skaggs has created a complete aesthetic: Her method is her metaphor – and vice versa.”

Brown would operate at that location for a couple of years, and then would move locations by 1998 to a building at 3318 East 10th Street. 

2630 East 10th Street as it appears today,
location of first Utrillo Gallery

Utrillo's would present what may be the most eclectic range of art and artists in the city during those times, with shows that included the intriguingly titled Sgt. Joe Griffith's Paintings of: The Kennedy Assassination in February 1998, a show of his own paintings called Cardboard and Canvas a few months later, as well as found art, folk art and thrift store art over the following months and years. 

Artists, in addition to Carla Knopp, included the quasi-outsider, Harry Blomme, and the iconoclastic self-proclaimed Allist, Jan Scott Boyer.  

In a 1998 exhibition, Utrillo Gallery presented Passionate Visions: Contemporary Folk Art of the South, selections from the personal collection of Robert Dawson, an IUPUI media studies teacher. 

S.L. Berry of the Indianapolis Star would preview the show in a Visual Arts column on July 21 of that year.

The writer described paintings as the primary focus of Dawson's collection, quoting the collector as follows,

“I especially like memory paintings...things that people paint later in their lives when they're recalling events or experiences or places in their past.”  

Berry also quotes Greg Brown about the show,

“The fine art community and the folk art community are starting to understand one another. This show is a conduit for furthering that.”

In March of 1999, Utrillo Gallery would exhibit the found-object creations of homeless outsider, William Talley. Later that same year in August, Greg Brown would exhibit his own collection of thrift shop prints and copies by French street scene painter, Maurice Utrillo, the inspirational namesake of his gallery.     

Carla Knopp would exhibit at Utrillo Gallery on several occasions, with painting shows including Villages in 1996, May Flowers in 1997 and  American Legion Show in 1999. 

She would also co-produce the gallery's public-access TV show with Brown, a further conduit of of connection between the street, outsider and folk art scenes and fine arts in the city.

Mapping the Ineffable in Multi-Dimensions.

Spelunker, Carla Knopp, 1999

It is perhaps fitting that Carla Knopp would show at Utrillo during the gallery's run in the mid-to-late 1990s.  

Folk art collector Robert Dawson's description of 'memory painting' might well apply to the surreal landscapes produced by Knopp during this time. But Knopp's paintings, although perhaps personal in part, seemed tapped into a broad and ancient memory bank –  or maybe timeless is the better word. A boundless collective store of information –  pre-conscious, post-conscious, unconscious, – consisting of an archetypal alien vocabulary of dreamy mysterious hieroglyphs. 

During this period, she captures views of un-graspable vistas, not nightmares or unnerving, but strange, pleasant harmonies of color and characters captured from yelping spurs of thought, memory or imagination.

Corporeality, 1999, paints a picture (top of page), labeled with that word, of  an all-seeing vine that tangles a grid between a bizarre rounded rise of snow, and a warm-colored sky. A prone snowman of sorts is rolling down a slope toward the viewer. Eerie eyeballs of gray, yellow and orange form a stack of spheres in the 'sky' echoed by the three spheres of the puffy 'snowman' below. It is an inexplicable scene, but of such pleasing colors and soft, rounded forms – two worlds, one painted cold and one colored warm –  divided by the bristling vines that guard the wonder of the winter scene from the sunset eyes in the sky.

Spelunker, 1999,  (above) alludes to cave exploration, and is an image that could be equally at home on a Robert Heinlein paperback or a shoegaze CD; the muted range of color and the hazy atmosphere, the segmented mechanics of the insectoid reptile to the left and the graceful and organic symmetry of the blinded weedflower to the right. 

There is a slight orientation of the interior landscape by a central columnar rocky form, but the scene seems to shift in the distance from a peaceful pastoral in shades of purple to a skull-like menace with an orange orb of an eye, and even into a presiding figure with outstretched arms, if you stare long enough. 

Both Corporeality and Spelunker contain the interplay of otherworldly biomorphic vegetation with serene circular forms seen in Knopp's earlier painting, Land of Poetry and Harmless Snakes. 

In two additional pictures from the period, we see the glimmering golden green of Arcadian landscapes, populated not by people, but by peculiarities. 

Tippi's Water Garden, Carla Knopp, 1999

Tippi's Water Garden, 1999, presents of a small dog, knee-deep in water, at the edge of a pond. A tennis ball floats nearby but the pooch seems to be looking past it. In the waters beyond, perhaps the dog is seeing things. Various animal forms – a bird, a bug, a teddy bear. Teeming things among the moss-covered rocks.

Another greenish gold picture, marvelously funny and charming, is Victorian Gray, 1999. The painting shows a steam-punk flying saucer, decorated with fussy brocade, hovering lopsided above a hilly pasture, seen between two trees. 

The 'gray' is a classic alien of the 'man from Mars' type. The being is enclosed in a soap bubble sphere atop the fancy-dress spacecraft –  or great grandma's lampshade –  whatever the case may be.   

Carla Knopp will exhibit less frequently in Indianapolis over the following few years. However, by about 2007, she will appear again with exhibits at several different venues with her ever evolving  artworks in the ever evolving art scene, as we shall see in Part 5.

Victorian Gray, Carla Knopp, 1999

Mark Diekhoff, May 2026

See also:

Greg Brown - Utrillo Gallery photos at flickr

Harry Blomme exhibition at Utrillo Gallery article by Mary Lee Pappas, NUVO.net

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 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

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