Ruthven Byrum – An Anderson Artist's Formative Years

Ruthven Holmes Byrum as a young man

Idyllic Adventures of an Artistic Boy.

The boy was born Ruthven. Likely of Scottish origin and referring to a certain locale in that country  around Perth and the River Almond. The name translates roughly as 'red place,' most likely, again referring to the landscape thereabouts. Ruthven's family name was Byrum, a name that would become well known in Anderson in the first half of the 20th Century.

His father Noah Byrum and uncle Enoch Byrum were founding leaders of the Anderson, Indiana-based non-Pentecostal, protestant Church of God. Both brothers were involved in the publishing arm of the church, called the Bible Trumpet Company, which was the major mode of evangelical outreach for the church  in its early years. The Byrum brothers, and their families, followed the relocation of Bible Trumpet from its Michigan location, where Ruthven was born, to Anderson, Indiana in 1906. 

Ruthven Byrum, like a typical youngster of his era, would begin to test the limit of his curiosity and adventure, and his growing strength, both physical and mental, soon after moving to Anderson, Indiana. 

So it was, in 1907, the boy became more widely known in the new city of his youth, by making the the third page of the The Anderson Herald on November 17, with his accidental adventure as follows,

“Ruthven Byrum, son of N.H. (Noah Holmes) Byrum, near the Gospel Trumpet home in Park Place, fell about twenty feet from a hickory tree yesterday afternoon and received painful injuries. He is expected to recover. He is eleven years old and was with some companions. By striking limbs of the tree the force of the fall was broken.”

The hard knock from the hickory, both the source of his exciting climb, and the near disaster of his fall, was the only reported misadventure of young Ruthven in Anderson. In contrast, his boyhood was was filled with idyllic events, perhaps commonplace in those simpler times, and with the educational and athletic challenges that would serve his overall development as a young man. We know of these things now, because in those days, such things were covered by the newspapers, whose columns Ruthven filled constantly, especially during his high school years.

He was put to volunteer at the annual camp meetings for the church by his father Noah, working in the book store booth as a part of the elaborate outdoor gathering which drew thousands of visitors. He attended lots of parties, we know by the society page coverage in The Herald; Halloween costume parties with other children, cake and ice cream extended family events, and even a topsy-turvy themed party on one occasion. 

In high school, he would try out for basketball, making second team. His first cousin Arlo Byrum, Uncle Enoch's son, the same age as Ruthven, would be first team captain, and a local star. Ruthven and Arlo would share many milestones and adventures in the high school years, although they were on distinctly different paths. As mentioned, Arlo mastered basketball, whereas Ruthven excelled in high school leadership, attaining both vice-president and then president of the student body senate. 

That high school senate would hold public debates and Ruthven would argue one side or the other at times, on such topical concerns as women suffrage, prohibition, and the need, or not, of a merchant marine force.

Around this time, when Ruthven was sixteen-years-old, on December 22, 1912, newspapers reported the first artistic inklings, in two different small articles on the same day, that would note the beginnings of Ruthven Byrum's life calling and career. 

In The Anderson Herald,

“Ruthven H. Byrum...is attracting considerable attention as an artist for a lad of sixteen years. A number of his landscape  sketches have been sent  to eastern cities and are winning popularity among art critics. This week Mr. Byrum is painting pictures at the White House for the public.”

And in The Indianapolis Star, 

“Ruthven H Byrum...after two years of study in art has realized enough money from the sale of pictures throughout the East to pay his expenses for a course in art at a conservatory in Paris and will leave for that city soon. Several of his productions have received honorable mention in art reviews in New York.” 

The newspaper evidence of the training and travel in the East and to Paris is not apparent. Perhaps the trip to France was canceled or postponed for some unknown reason. This was still before war in Europe but was after the April sinking of the Titanic in the Atlantic crossing on its maiden voyage.  

After graduation in May 1914, the shared exploits of the Byrum cousins, Ruthven and Arlo, would be reported in the  August 30, 1914, Anderson Herald. On a page covered with the harrowing develops in the war in Europe, both on land at at sea, the innocent yet arduous, adventures of the recent graduates stands in stark contrast,

“Word has been received here from Arlo and Ruthven Byrum who are on a bicycle trip through northern Michigan. At this time the boys are enjoying a week's long fishing at Torch Lake, Antrim County, Michigan. They report that the fishing is extra fine in the streams around.”

It was not until a year later, in summer, when the cousins, again as a pair, would visit both Bloomington and Valparaiso. In may have been college visits. 

They both would enter Indiana University at Bloomington in the fall of 1915. And after four years, Arlo will have become star player and captain of the I.U. Basketball team in the 1919-20 season. Ruthven would study art.

Ruthven Byrum studied under Robert E. Burke, professor and landscape painter, while at I.U., where he would earn a degree in fine arts. Byrum would later cite T.C. Steele as providing inspiration during his I.U. years. Perhaps the art student sought out the master at his home studio and gallery at the House of the Singing Winds in nearby Brown County, because Steele was not to begin his affiliation with the University until 1922.

Study at the Chicago Art Institute and First Exhibits.

After graduation, Byrum returned to his parents home in Anderson, and was a swimming instructor for a year. The next phase of his artistic training is reported in The Anderson Herald on January 16, 1927,

“When he was twenty-three, (Byrum) entered the Art Institute at Chicago. The first three years in the Institute are taken up with the various expressions of portrayal. Perspective, color, design, chiaroscuro, were part of Byrum's first three years. Under Leon Kroll famous modernist and follower of George Bellows, he studied design. 

The effect of this modern portrayal (as championed by Bellows and Kroll) was well balanced by Byrum's work under Karl Buehr, whose landscapes and portraiture are considered exceptional fine. (Beuer) gains his effects in a more classical method with the pervading tone of simplicity through all his work. (Kroll and Buehr) exerted a powerful influence on Ruthven Byrum's work.

After the usual three year course in the Institute, he stayed on two years to perfect his method of work, by watching and copying the methods of the great painters of America who have been drawn to the Chicago Art Institute, Byrum has been able to develop a style and a worth which place him in the same category with our noted Indiana painters.”

During the five years in training in Chicago, Byrum would often return to Anderson at holidays and during summer breaks. In this period of time, he would paint a mural and have his first solo exhibition in Anderson and travel to Oregon to sketch the northwest landscape and climb Mt. Hood.

About the mural, the November 10, 1923, Anderson Daily Bulletin, reports,

 “Ruthven Byrum, 24...has completed a mural painting on the wall over the pulpit of the Church of God in Park Place...The painting...is a pastoral scene entitled The Eastern Shepherd and is a splendid work of art. A shepherd and fourteen sheep are shown in the painting. The picture is ten feet high and eight feet wide. The artist started the work last Monday and finished it today.”

A year later, the same paper reports about the Mt. Hood expedition, in the August 22 edition,

“Ruthven Byrum, son of Mr. and Mrs. N. H. Byrum, of this city, is in the West with his parents and his brother Myrl, on a tour. An account of an interesting hike up Mt. Hood is contained in a letter from Byrum to a friend...”

The column continues with excerpts from Byrum's letter to a friend Bill,

“We pulled out of Portland...Saturday afternoon, drove 50 miles to the government camp on Mt. Hood, and hiked four miles to the timber line...just before it was too dark to see...It is very wonderful to sit around a roaring camp fire...singing and having a big time...

(The next morning) We took our time eating breakfast and painting our faces so they would not blister, and didn't get started till nearly 6 o'clock. The next four and a half miles took about seven and a half hours. It was most the way over glaciers. It got steeper all the time, until the last 500 feet was at least an 85 degree angle.” 

The letter details the harrowing and exhausting final ascent, and the climb down, the letter reading,

“Coming down was the fun. It took an hour and a half where it took seven and a half going up. That 500-foot slide was hard on the seats of our trousers, but was the biggest coasting I ever did...The rest of the glacier was fun, too. We ran down, and now and then would take a tumble in the snow heels over head. It was the greatest hike I ever took.”   

 Byrum concludes his letter to a friend regarding his overall impressions of the West,

“California is all right, but I like Oregon much better. They say you like the states better the longer you stay. But give me Indiana compared to the other places I have been.”

The adventure of Byrum's first solo exhibition would occur about a year later, as reported in the September 9, 1925, Anderson Daily Bulletin. The small notice shared a front page screaming headline about a dirigible crash in Caldwell, Ohio, of a huge airship called Shenandoah. The small article titled Anderson Society Sponsors Exhibit, reported,

“Twenty paintings by Ruthven Byrum...constitute the annual exhibit of the Anderson Society of Artists at the Y.M.C.A.  The paintings, most of which are portraits, are receiving many high compliments and are drawing much interest.”

It should be noted that Byrum himself was a founder of the fledgling Society of Artists, and was beginning to teach classes in art about this time out of his studio in the Griffith Block in  downtown Anderson.

A year later, he would spend time in Brown County painting the peak season of color, one imagines, as reported in the Anderson Daily Bulletin, October 25, 1926,

“Ruthven Byrum and Warner H. Clayton, local artists, have returned from Brown county, where they spent the week end as guests of Prof. Robert Burke, head of the art department at Indiana University. The short visit was spent at the studio lodge of Prof. Burke, overlooking Nashville.

The Anderson artists spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday sketching scenes of picturesque Brown county and brought back to this city about thirteen sketches which will be exhibited at the annual exhibit...sponsored by the Anderson Society of Artists.” 

Byrum's sketches would be seen in the upcoming days, not only in Anderson, but in Indianapolis, where he would begin a series of solo shows that would be covered extensively by that city's best art critic, Lucille Morehouse, in her Indianapolis Star Sunday column, In the World of Art.

On a Bigger Stage.

The first of three solo exhibits of works by Byrum, all at Pettis Gallery, was held in January of 1927. It garnered many mentions in the Indianapolis  newspapers, the most thorough and detailed by Lucille Morehouse in her Star coverage on January 23,

“Ruthven Byrum...is holding his first exhibit in Indianapolis, with twenty-five oil paintings at Pettis gallery....

Thirteen portraits, nine landscapes, one figure composition in landscape setting, one flower study and one still life make up the exhibit.”

Morehouse goes on to provide her opinion regarding both portrait work and landscape,

“Two portraits that might be regarded as outstanding are H. E. Briggs and Self Portrait. Of unusual interest from the standpoint of composition...Mr. Briggs...is a study in character that portrays a type given to philosophical thought. The sitter appears to be ready in speech, quick witted, a bit cynical, but good-naturedly so...

The artist is a bit over-zealous...in his effort to make the accessories do his bidding...

In the Briggs painting the glossy wood and the patterned cane of the chairback come forward too much.”

And about landscape,

“He handles hazy atmosphere and distances with softly glowing light satisfactorily, but his landscapes, in most cases, lack vigor, definiteness in line and convincing construction.”

She sums up her thoughts and first impressions,

“On the whole I like the honest serious work of Ruthven Byrum, the sincerity of purpose and the stamp of what seems to be his own fine character, leaving its imprint on that which comes from his brush.”

Her listing of some titles of his landscapes provides evidence of the subjects he found interesting at the time;  Mysterious River Bank, View on the Dunes, Tree Group, Brown County Road and House on the River Bank.   

Autumn on the White River, Ruthven Byrum

 

The following spring, Byrum exhibited a new multi-figure painting, first at the Anderson Society of Artists exhibit where it earned a 3rd prize, and then as part of the 20th Annual Indiana Artists exhibit at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis. The March 26, 1927, Indianapolis News described the picture,

“Indicating that Indiana artists are alive to all Hoosier interests is a canvas showing two teams of basketball players in full action. Basketball by Ruthven H. Byrum has the life and the vigor of the game. Few artists would think of looking to so violently active a sport as an inspiration for an art product. Close study and careful delineation make this a notable canvas.”

His other painting in the same show is covered by a competing paper, The Indianapolis Times, in its March 30 edition,

“Man with a Pipe, by Ruthven H. Byrum is a problem worked out in grays – all clean, thin paint, extremely simplified in color.”

And then a month or so later, as part of the 30th Annual Exhibit of Paintings by Indiana Artists in Richmond, Indiana at Morton High School, another painting by Byrum was covered.  The April 11, 1927 Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram  reported that his Portrait, Miss Vandiver (later called Girl with the Pink Hat) earned a third place honorable mention.

The September 14 Anderson Herald announced yet two more award winning pictures by Ruthven Byrum that year, this time in the Indiana State Fair arts competition; Portrait of Rev. Floyd Appleton (later called Ph. D)  a fifth prize in the portrait category, and Hollyhocks, a second prize in flower pictures.  The short article also note the flower picture was painted from a window looking out in the home of Judge Lawrence Mays of Pendleton, Indiana. 

Byrum's second solo show at Pettis Gallery in Indianapolis would occur that same year in November. It is interesting to note that at the same time there was a plethora of interesting exhibits around the city. 

At the Woman's Department Club on North Meridian Street, there was a memorial display of artworks by J. Ottis Adams showing pictures from each period of the artist's life. At his Paradise Hills Studio north of Fort Benjamin Harrison, Frederick Polley was showing his etchings, drypoints, drawings and small paintings.  At John Hardrick's Studio on Indiana Avenue, the artist was showing thirty landscape paintings and Portrait of Frederick E. Shortmeier.

Byrum's Pettis show is reviewed by Lucille Morehouse in the November 11, 1927 Indianapolis Star, where she speaks admirably of the portraits Ph.D and Girl with the Pink Hat. About Byrum's other pictures she writes succinctly,

“There are several sprightly little flower paintings, handled realistically and decoratively. The landscapes are mostly autumn scenes near Anderson.”

On February 8, 1928, Ruthven Byrum would marry Miss Mae Valentine of Portland, Oregon. They would make there home in Anderson. 

In the 31st Annual Indiana Artists in Richmond, Byrum would show two portraits and a large oil titled Hazy Afternoon which depicted a scene of rooftops in Anderson according to the Indianapolis Star on April 8, 1928. 

Apple Blossoms, Ruthven Byrum

Byrum would again win awards at the Indiana State Fair that year in various categories, as reported in the September 2, 1928, Anderson Herald. 

“Ruthven Byrum...won unusual distinction in the art exhibit at the Indiana state fair  when judges awarded him four premiums on pictures he is exhibiting...

Mr. Byrum was given a second premium...(for human figures or animal pictures)...on his painting of the scene on the north side of the court house  last summer for the closing of Anderson's first Dollar Day. Two awards for landscape painters were given  him for a picture, The Sand Dunes, painted last year while visiting along Lake Michigan, and for a painting, Apple Blossoms, a study of an apple orchard near Daleville.

Mr. Byrum also won a premium  for painting of the human figure, with a painting of his mother, the picture known as Inspirational Corner.”

Glacier Laker, Ruthven Byrum

Lucille Morehouse, for the third time in two years, covered a Byrum solo show at Pettis Gallery in Indianapolis. He observations are contained in her Sunday column in the Indianapolis Star dated December 16, 1928,

“Outstanding canvases in Ruthven Byrum's exhibit are a large figure composition, Dollar Day, that was a prize winner at the Indiana state fair, and a mountain scene, Inspiration Point, which is a glorious view of Mt. Hood's snow-patterned peak in bright sunlight. Mr. Byrum had a two months painting excursion in Oregon and Glacier park, Montana, from July 15 to Sept. 15. He said...Inspiration Point (is) where the view of Mt. Hood is one of the best to be had.”

St. Mary's Lake, a trifle larger canvas than Inspiration Point, should be viewed across the room and dwelt upon long enough for the loveliness of tonality to be fully enjoyed. Both mountain and lake seem to belong to fairyland...it seems like a dream mountain.”

 She mention two other Oregon pictures, Crown Point on the Columbia and Oregon Breakers. About the  Anderson multi-figure painting she write,

“...Dollar Day might be said to be reminiscent of some of the figure groups  that were painted by George Bellows. This does not mean that the work is any the less stamped with Mr. Byrum's individuality.”

She then describes portions of the picture,

“The blindfolded boy scout in the copper tub, the man at the right with a megaphone, the bandman seated off at the left...”

She continues to describe the paintings obscure narrative, then settles on an helpful admonishment to the viewer, in summary,

“Enjoy the picture from the art side and don't bother your wits about the 'story' side. I hope Mr. Byrum sends his Dollar Day to some of the big exhibitions  and then paints some more pictures along the same line.”

 

The End of the Beginning.

Ruthven Holmes Byrum, at just over thirty years old, had lived twenty years in Anderson since boyhood. He was newly married and on the precipice of whole new lives of experience. 

The coming years would bring further art training in Paris and Munich. His family life would be blessed by a child. He would return to Anderson and be a founder of the art program at Anderson College (now University). 

But that all happens in the last half of his life. This was the story of his first half. 

The first half when his love of art began when he painted a landscape as a child, and straight away he sold it to his dad for a dollar. In tree climbing, and basketball, mountain climbing and art, a little support and the spark of encouragement can lead to beautiful things. 

Mark Diekhoff, December 2025

Lake and Mountains, Ruthven Byrum, AWI Collection

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The Epic Dramas of Artist Elmer Taflinger – Act Four

A Gallery By Any Other Name.

The November 11, 1933 Indianapolis Star introduced a new gallery to the Indianapolis art scene. It was a gallery to play a small, but not insignificant, part in the Elmer Taflinger drama. Lucille Morehouse explains in her column that day,

“An exhibition of William Forsyth has been selected to open the newly established art gallery on Monument circle that is to be conducted in connection with the Lyman Brothers art store. Damian Lyman and Carl Lyman, sons of members of the original art firm, are co-directors of the gallery, which has been opened on the fourth floor, over the store. The fact that the room was used as a studio by T. C. Steele, many years ago, seems to dedicate it, in an endearing way, as a gallery in which to display Indiana art.

The dignified and gentle nature of the artist who had his studio in the same room in the early days of Indianapolis seems, in some indefinable way, in an outstanding feature of the room, an early fireplace whose mantel of classic design suggests a stateliness and elegance of an earlier period.

The fireplace, it might be said, is apt to give a permanent name to Lyman's new gallery. 'The Fireplace gallery' has been suggested as a name by Elmer Taflinger. And it seems especially appropriate.”

Indeed Taf's suggestion of a name would stick, and within a few weeks time he would displaying his first one-man show at Lyman's Fireplace Gallery. Again, always the intrepid reporter, Lucille Morehouse provides the coverage in her In the World of Art  column in The Star on January 14, 1934,

“The one-man show of fifty-seven drawings by Elmer E. Taflinger at Lyman's Fireplace Gallery on Monument circle enters its second and final week tomorrow. This statement of itself should be enough to crowd the gallery throughout the entire week. But when it is said that each one of the drawings was selected by a different person, as a means of assembling the exhibit, the show takes on additional interest. When these selections were made, chiefly by artists, students and models, although the list also includes names of Indianapolis architects, photographers, sign painters, lawyers, insurance men, laboratory dentists and others who from time to time visited the studio, there were no price marks to add their silent influence on the selection.”

Taflinger explained to Morehouse that he had preserved about 200 drawings in total from which to choose the exhibit. Most of those 200 produced during the prior five years, although a grand total  of between 5,000 to 6,000 had been made. The vast majority of the larger number have been lost due to wear and tear over the many years of running his school.

Morehouse describes a few selections in the show as follows,

“Clifton Wheeler choice of a feminine nude, seated, in charcoal, is one of the best all round drawings of the nude. Because it is a more difficult pose with more problems of foreshortening, the reclining male figure, also in charcoal, selected by Paul Jones, would probably be placed first as a skillful accomplishment in study of the nude.

Theodore Steele, called Ted by his friends, son of...Brandt...and grandson of T. C. Steele...selected a drawing in sanguine of an old man with a humped back. Cornet Wood selected a sanguine drawing, two figures, a boy and a girl, wearing everyday clothes and resting on a divan.

Wallace Richards selected a delicately penciled nude group on a gold background. Jean Messick's choice is an inspirational figure, a Juno type of woman.”

Morehouse described the her overall impression when entering the gallery room filled with Taflinger's work,

“The sense of color is so very definite as one enters the gallery that it takes a second look to bring a realization that the work is largely in black and white. Of course there is a generous sprinkling of pastel drawing – gloriously colorful, never gay an flashing, but with a glowing brilliancy and satisfying contrast and depth of tone.” 

It seems appropriate that Taflinger's first solo show would be of the drawing studies that were part and parcel to his teaching methods and his art school. It is unclear how many paintings of the Green Goddess or My Body is Weary variety that he had produced, or how often, to that point I his career. His specialty was life drawing, almost exclusively, rather than landscape, or still life. He was certainly able to whip out figure painting and portraits, as was seen in his flash painting duo-portrait performance at the state fair the prior year.  But again, figure drawings would be his bread and butter. 

Taflinger possessed a looming and larger ambition. The creation of a mural of his own.  Perhaps the lingering sting of the Thomas Hart Benton matter, or maybe his own grandiose impulses would propel him toward its impending creation. Maybe Taf's first thoughts on the project were more about what it ought not be, as opposed to a clear idea of what it would be. The March 21, 1936, Indianapolis Times sheds light on his thoughts on the regionalist and social realist Benton proteges at the time, when it reports, “Elmer Taflinger calls the Roosevelt mural painters the Depressionists.” It can be inferred that Taflinger's mocking quip is aimed at artists working with the government's Section of Fine Arts program to place art work in federal buildings, most notable post offices.  

Social realism would not be his goal, apparently, as he planned a more class-neutral work of more timeless and universal appeal.  His plans would evolve and coalesce into a tripartite series of large canvases, designed to hang snugly side by side, carefully drawn, and balanced beautifully in color and tone.

Utilizing a similar broad and collaborative input, as he did for selections for the Lyman show, Taflinger would again amass a list of fanboy favorites, this time from a survey of science experts, for inclusion in an encyclopedic Rosetta Stone, his mural of mind, man and nature. The project would capture his attention and harness his creative talents in the years to come. 

Apotheosis of Science by Elmer Taflinger, central panel
appearing in Science Monthly, 1940

Taflinger's Vitruvian Show-Stopper.

The finished mural, Apotheosis of Science, was complete and ready for its debut in the fall of 1939. The Star art writer, Lucille Morehouse, covered the unveiling with her long an thorough review on September 21,

“The painting framed as three panels, is in reality one continuous design, executed in oils on canvas...”

The overall subject matter of the mural can be simplified to say that it contains a central symbolic figure amid an array of many secondary human figures, animals and plants that represent a broad swath of natural and scientific creation and classification. Morehouse goes into more detail regarding the works appearance and design, 

“In the figure groups the color is kept rich and dark. But in the design...concerned with the lower animals and the plants...the color is light-toned and luminous....

...the artist...constructed his design on the Greek basis of the circle and the square. And it was upon this basis of geometrical lines that the whole composition was worked out with mathematical precision.”

Morehouse first elaborates on the stunning central figure of the composition, Taflinger's take on Vitruvian Man. The four-legged, four-armed man thus becomes a basis for design and proportion for the entire work as Taflinger utilizes the knowledge of the Greeks and as immortalized by Leonardo da Vince. Taflinger's universal man has three faces, if not three heads entirely, representing the anthropological divide of race among human beings. About the three-faced head, Morehouse writes,

“There need be no explanation...to see that the central and larger head is a carefully painted portrait of Leonardo da Vinci...well along in years, with piercing eyes beneath shaggy brows and with long hair and beard.”

The central placement of da Vinci, as Morehouse quotes Taflinger, is because “he holds his place as the outstanding man of all time.”

A latent, perhaps coincidental, misogyny in the work is observed by Morehouse when she notes that nary a woman is included in the plethora of scientific notables portrayed in the mural. Taflinger and his brother-in-law, Robert L. Black, the Manual High School science teacher who commissioned the mural for his classroom, worked together on the project. Taflinger created and executed the design and painting, while Black, in the early days of preparation and research, submitted a questionnaire to over 100 of the country's eminent scientists for their input as to who should be included in the work. Perhaps the intention was to solicit a wide range of suggestions, but the male echo chamber that sought and suggested names, came up empty on the feminine, whether mythological, historical or contemporary.   

The Indianapolis News on September 23 also provides a review of Apotheosis of Science, less detailed and more as a summary of essential features,

“The Apotheosis of Science, the latest mural of Elmer Taflinger, was hung today in the biology classroom of Robert Lovell Black, for whom it was painted, at Emmerich Manual Training High School. The mural, 21 x 5 feet in size, has attracted attention in the field of art and science which the artist has combined in the symbolical presentation of the foremost scientists of all ages.

Five years of research and study went into the making of the mural, with more than 100 scientists being consulted in selection of the figures in the composition.

Frames as three panels, the painting is one continuous design. In the central panel, the complete classification of plants and animals are represented. The panels on each side  of the central are grouped with outstanding men of success.” 

Lucille Morehouse writes a second major article on Apotheosis... with a summary of a long and detailed interview with Taflinger in his studio where he offers a minutia of details regarding the subject matter, design and creation of the piece.  Included this Star piece dated September 24, is a photograph of Taflinger painting on the canvas, on what appears to be the left of the three panels.

An article penned by Robert L. Black would appear in The Scientific Monthly magazine in February of 1940. The article contains photographs of all three panels of the mural. The most cohesive explanation of the mural's composition and intentions are provided in the article, when Black writes, in part,

“The center panel portrays  representative plants and animals of each of the main classes...the center portion of the central panel contains four Greek scientists of the ancient world, two on either side, each symbolical of one of the four ancient elements, fire water, earth and air. They are placed in defensive positions, guarding life...

In the side panels are shown forty-eight of the great scientists of all ages...and arranged according to their field of work rather than the period in which they lived. The men in the left panel  were interested in living things...botany, zoology...genetics and medicine...while those on the right panel dealt mainly with pure science...mathematics, physics, astronomy and chemistry.

Each scientist has reached a summit...and is portrayed as standing on a mountain top...each...holds in his hand a symbol of his accomplishment.

The foreground of the picture  shows the remains of great periods of civilization, which have risen and fallen while the search for truth...has continued...”

  

The Black article is also useful in that it provides a complete list of the scientific figures included in the work.

Apotheosis of Science was to gain notoriety as it began a tour of cities in the eastern U.S. in the fall of 1940 and spring of 1941. The mural was displayed at scientific conferences held in Philadelphia and New York, as reported in The Indianapolis Star at the time. 

In his old age, Taflinger was to relay the subsequent history of the mural to Indianapolis News writer 

Marion Garmel. In her December 18, 1974 article, she writes,

“The Apotheosis of Science...has hung in Manual and Shortridge High Schools, been on display in the Museum of Arts and Science at Rockefeller Center in New York, and now hangs on one of the gigantic walls of Taflinger's carriage house studio.”

And that is the story of Taflinger's revenge, his Apotheosis...

A  broad salvo of a summation. A declaration of riposte and rebuttal. A crucible of wonder and riddles.

 

A mural of his own.

Wasted Talent or Wonder Years?

The war years and-post war decade, for Elmer Taflinger, were filled with an array of activity memorialized in the press. Taflinger's PR machine would not stop, nor would it slow, even as his production of fine art did.  In this period, Taflinger, the man of art usually played second fiddle to Ol' Taf the trickster, the raconteur, the sooth-seer or the odd ball.

Elmer Taflinger creating pastel portrait of DePauw coed
source The Indianapolis Star

In January and February of 1945, as the war in Europe was grinding toward a close, Elmer Taflinger made the papers by participating in an art event that seemed a riff off his earlier stunt of painting the winning state fair dress-making beauty (and the prize calf) of a few years prior. As reported in the January 3, 1945, South Bend Tribune,

 

“Five prominent Hoosier artists will come to DePauw university Saturday to choose the most pulchritudinous of DePauw's campus and paint a coed of their choice, it was announced ...by Prof. A. Reid Winsey, head of the art department...

DePauw beauty winners will have their photographs and pictures of the artist' portraits published in the 1945 Mirage, student yearbook...”

A few weeks later on February 16, in The Indianapolis Star, a photograph appeared showing Taflinger at work at his easel, painting a pastel portrait of his chosen coed, junior Miss Helen Davidson, of Kirkwood, Missouri.  The photograph also notes the other participating artists as Earl Beyer, Randolph Coats, Ruth Pratt Bobbs and Edmund Brucker. 

On the same day, in the same paper, there was an article about a pageant in honor of the 50-Year anniversary of Emmerich Manual Training High School. The gala would include dining, dancing, a double-header basketball game, and music including a special march, Our Golden Heritage, written by Charles Henzie, the manual band director.

The article referenced an art exhibit, as part of the festivities, to include both former and current artists and art students, and highlighted the recollections of former student Elmer Taflinger,

“Elmer Taflinger, local artist and mural painter, is one of those represented in the exhibit. Taflinger 

wanted to study art, so he enrolled in one art class for a double period, and one cooking class – also a double period – to keep the record straight – and slipped away from pans to pencils so that he could spend four hours a day  with the master (presumably the late Otto Stark, of Hoosier Group fame and former Manual art instructor).  

In the days surrounding this event, Taflinger was mentioned in another article and pictured in a photograph of related interest in the same newspaper. On February 17, he was pictured in a photographed with a pretty Manual senior art student, Miss Thelma Williams, installing the the portrait of Otto Stark in the anniversary exhibit. And on February 19, an article reported that Taflinger was to paint a portrait of the late Milo Stuart, one of three principals in the school's history. The first principal, Charles Emmerich, was painted by T. C. Steele and the second principal, E. H. Kemper McComb, was painted by Marie Goth. It is noted that all three painters were Manual graduates.    

During the same period, Taflinger was a regular source of gee-whiz material to Indianapolis Star columnist, Lowell Nussbaum, and his The Things I Hear! column. A torrent of offbeat, human interest and comic material was most certainly required for the sustenance of a daily column by the writer. Taflinger was such a source, judging from his mentions by Nussbaum, whose fire hose of offbeat antics just didn't run dry.

 

Nussbaum was to cover Taflinger, the artist, countless times from the '40s through the '60s, but particular noteworthy were a couple of episodic stretches where he was to present humorous bits about Taflinger and his cats, and Taflinger and his search for nude models, over several columns each, at a time. An example, shown almost in its entirety to demonstrate the homespun inanity of the coverage, and because it is a typical example of many such mentions of Taf by Nussbaum over those years,  in the September 17, 1945, Indianapolis Star reads as follows, 

“Elmer Taflinger, the artist, doesn't know which is worse – cats or rats. Sometimes he thinks maybe it's the cats. No rats, he theorizes, ever brought a cat into his studio, but his cats – well....

Some time back, the cats dragged in what looked like a mouse. Much to Elmer's disgust, the well fed cats just played with the mouse, but didn't kill it.  The 'mouse' stayed around and eventually grew into a full-grown rat. The cats wouldn't bother it. One day Elmer discovered the rat had eaten the insulation off the wiring in his expensive electronic recording device.  

Then he saw red. From the nearby Propylaeum, he borrowed a mouse trap. Nothing happened. He lectured the cats about their duties, but they just yawned. 

So Elmer went to the dime store and bought four big rat traps. That did the trick. But Elmer's still mad at his cats.” 

  

During the 1940s, Taflinger continued teaching his large classes in figure drawing and portraits at his school, and he developed a relation as a visiting teacher and lecturer at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. 

Regarding his stint at DePauw, a clipping from what may be the student newspaper describes a lecture 

Taflinger gave entitled “Painful Acquisition of Knowledge without the Blessing of Academic Guidance.” The talk, which concerned the turning points of his art career between the rags and not so rich ages of 12 and 35, was subtitled in chapters with competitive titles; Episode One - Beautiful Teacher or Raggedy Man Reward,  second – Murat Shoebox or What Happened to the Landlady's Cat, third – The Falling Quarter or David Belasco's Perfect Memory... and so on, through six episodes.  

The scattered and haphazard talk was summed up by Taflinger himself, when he is quoted as saying his humorous lecture “lopped off the flamboyant fixtures to my conception of art.”  Whatever that is supposed to mean. 

Taf could not settle for one title for his turning  points, so he gave each one of them two. The dueling  nature of his dual titles, reveal a warring psyche in flux. On display, his thoughts battle their competing interests and betray a lack of focus, an inability to make a decision or stick with a single 'thing.' 

It seems an understanding Taflinger had of himself, as we shall soon see, this push and pull, this teeter totter of a life and career he lived.

Taflinger's frenetic multitasking was the subject of a detailed biographical sketch of Taflinger appearing in the December 28, 1947, Indianapolis Star. The article by Joseph K. Shepard titled, He Works at his Hobby and Plays at his Work – If He has the Time, begins with a question, “Wasted talent?”

It may be more a conclusion drawn by the writer upon the evidence he gathered through the course of his interview.  Shepard arrives for the interview at Taflinger's residence in the Golden Hills neighborhood of Indianapolis. Taflinger busied himself with various tasks, both tedious and menial, 'antiquing' of bricks for an addition to his home, feeding his many cats, tinkering with his ham radio gear. Meticulous in his procrastination from producing fine art, the bricks when he finished were a perfect match for the existing construction on his home, his cats remained fat and purring, and as an example of the fruits of his electronics bug, the writer relayed the following story,

“(Taf) recorded from the radio Shelbyville's complete basketball career in the state finals last season and sold eight sets of the records to Shelbyville basketball fanatics. It took 30 hours of continuous recording, 14 sides to each set, to complete the order.”

The state of disunion of Taflinger's art career is further addressed in the article,

“...Taf works harder at his hobby than he does at his natural gift.

That's why Taflinger masterpieces are hard to find. They are crumpled in waste-baskets, they are used as kitten bibs, napkins and tablecloths...

...Taflinger admits that he has done little serious work since the mural, Apotheosis of Science...10 years ago.”

Accompanying the article, which again relays Taf's biography a rollicking and vivid way, is a cartoon sketch of the teacher. The teacher Taflinger, as remembered by his student Mickey Thurgood.  With Delilah, a favorite cat, perched clawing to his back. Taf barking criticisms and getting sidetracked with his storytelling while his brushes wait.

Elmer Taflinger drawing by student Micky Thurgood
appearing in Indianapolis Star, 1947

Mark Diekhoff October 2025

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