Abstract Art in Indiana – Mae Engron and Ed Funk Works Recently Offered at Ripley Auctions

Ed Funk, Exhibition Postcard, Galerie Penumbra, 2007

Ab Ex in Gen X Indy.

Two recent sales at Ripley Auctions contained numerous artworks by two of well-known and prolific abstract expressionist artists from Indianapolis; Mae Alice Engron and Ed Funk.

Both artists attended Herron Art School in the last quarter of the 20th Century, and began creating and exhibiting their art in the Gen X era of the 1980s and 90s. Their most prolific years coincided with a  golden age of contemporary art exhibition in Indianapolis, that began with the establishment of the first commercial art gallery on Massachusetts Avenue in the early 80s and concluded with the widespread economic disruption caused by the 2008 banking crash. It also was a period when local daily and weekly newspapers covered the art scene thoroughly with writers such as Steve Mannheimer, Marion Garmel, S.L. Berry, Julianna Thibodeaux and Mary Lee Pappas, to name just a few.

In the years between, numerous venues existed for the exhibition of art by city artists. Commercial galleries on Mass Ave included Patrick King Contemporary Art, Ruschman Art Gallery and Denouement Gallery. 

Area large-business concerns, such as Indiana National Bank, American States Insurance and  Jefferson National Life Insurance, would host exhibits or art competitions to be shown in the lobbies or other public spaces in their downtown buildings. 

Herron Gallery would at times exhibit group shows of local artists, as would Indianapolis Museum of Art, in shows ranging from the biennial Indiana Artists Show to the later In IN Gallery that highlighted local artists with shows that changed monthly.  

Finally, artists self-organized in various locations around the downtown and mounted pop-up or annual, or even monthly shows at art art enclaves such as Henry Street artists near Union Station, St. Mary's Academy on Vermont Street, the Stutz Factory at 10th and Meridian or the Faris Building on South Meridian near Eli Lilly, again to name a few.    

This period can be contrasted with the post-2008 Financial Crisis/Millennial-era that continues until the present time in which major Indianapolis contemporary art venues have shifted toward non-profit cooperatives such as Harrison Center and Big Car Collaborative, and newspaper reviews, criticism and coverage has decreased markedly, with what remains moving almost entirely to social media.   

The Live Estate Art Discovery sale on October 29, 2025, and the Fine Art Discovery Live! sale on January 7, 2026, included many large, colorful canvases by Mae Alice Engron and numerous works of varying media by Ed Funk, including woodprints, monotypes and watercolors. The works capture the experiments of both talented artists as they question color, composition, rhythm and mass –  those constant riddles of abstract expressionism –  questions ultimately answered in their paint or ink. 

Mae Alice Engron was a prominent African American abstract artist born in Indianapolis in 1933. Her early and mid adulthood was spent working as a civil servant  for the post office, until a work injury led to a change in life path.  Her new direction would be to pursue art training at Herron School of Art, where she graduated in 1984, at the age of 42.

Ed Funk also came to art a bit later in life. Born in Indianapolis in 1953, he served in the U. S. Navy from 1975 – 1982.  His travels while in the service, particularly tours in Japan and Thailand,  would influence his aesthetic preferences, as we shall see. He returned to Indianapolis after his military discharge from service, and would enroll at Herron Art School and would graduate in 1988.

Both artists were extremely productive in the years immediately following graduation, and would begin making connections with other artists, art enclaves, galleries and museums, throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. 

Both Engron and Funk most likely studied under Herron School of Art's, Robert Berkshire, a well-known local abstract expressionist.

Mae Alice Engron 

(1933-2007)

Mae Engron, as early as 1982 when she was still attending Herron, would take up studio residence in the Indianapolis Academy of Arts in the former St. Mary's Academy ('Academy') on Vermont Street downtown. She is pictured in the September 1, 1982, Indianapolis News, with a large abstract painting she is placing in the  main chapel gallery in the building. The Academy was anticipated as a non-profit to provide “less expensive studio space for artists,” according to spokesman and sculptor Diane Steele, with studios renting from $75 to $200 per month. 

Over the following two years, Engron would exhibit in solo shows both at the Academy and the Jewish Community Center, and a group show of women at the Academy, called  It' All Art. 

After graduation, she would pursue exhibitions at the alternative spaces offered by Indianapolis corporate offices and institutions such as The Indiana National Bank Tower Gallery at their hi-rise downtown, the Jefferson National Life Insurance Lobby Gallery, at One Virginia Avenue, and the Central Library, where she showed ten paintings in February 1987.

A wider audience would follow later the year when she was featured in a WFYI program airing in December, in which she discussed pursuing an art career at the age of 50.  

She would also be a participant in a new venture called  A PARTnership in Business and Art sponsored by First Indianapolis Business Center on the near east-side. The enterprise would begin to offer their conference room for exhibitions by contemporary Indiana artists.  

Mae Engron is photographed aside fellow Indianapolis abstract expressionist, Lois Main Templeton, with their respective paintings, in a photograph in Marion Garmel column of The Indianapolis News, December 10, 1987. 

And in 1988 at the The Omnibus Exhibit at Herron Gallery, she was one of ten mid-career artists, both local and national, who were showing new work. Other Indianapolis artists in the exhibit were Peg Fierke, Carl Pope, and Ellie Siskind.

This was the first Engron exhibit to garner critic comment. In her Brush Strokes column in the July 14, 1988, Indianapolis News, Marion Garmel reviews Omnibus, but due to the large number of artists, is only able to comment briefly on each. On Mae Engron, Garmel writes just the one line, 

“...(Engron) paints large, colorful patterns of bubbles and unalloyed joy.”  

The next month, Stephen Stoller's Denouement Gallery at 413 Massachusetts Avenue would host a solo show by Mae A. Engron, Line, Form, Shapes and Things. Unfortunately, the show did not receive a preview description or review that can be located in the local press.

The following year, in July 1989, Engron would present More Paintings by Mae A. Engron at the Chamber of Commerce Building on North Meridian Street. 

In a December 13, 1989 article by Marion Garmel in The Indianapolis News,  the arts writer previews Engron's one day pop-up show and sale in a rented studio at the Indianapolis Art League. 

A 'starving artist' theme permeates Garmel's column which reads in part, as follows,

“(Mae) Engron will be selling some of the paintings she recently displayed at the Chamber of Commerce Building, in hopes of making enough money to buy canvases and paints to prepare for her next exhibition.

Engron is a living example of the difficulty artists have in making a living only from their art. A critically acclaimed artist who earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the Herron School of Art in the late 1980s, after raising a family, she was one of two black artists included in...Herron's Welcome Back alumni show in 1988.

Her bold, patterned paintings have been exhibited at the Sheldon Swope Art Center in Terre Haute, Indianapolis Art League, Indiana Black Expo and Indiana State Fair.”

The Writer's Studio of Jordan Hall at Butler University hosted a poetry reading and painting by Mae Engron on April 19, 1990. Later in the year, in October and November, Collaboration: Recent Works of Mae Engron and Alice Usher presented paintings and sculpture  by the two Indianapolis women at American States Insurance at 500 North Meridian Street.

Newspaper listings and coverage will reveal that Mae Engron began exhibiting less often in the following years, although she was part of the PSI Art Collection exhibit in the Lawrence County Courthouse lobby in 1994. The Bedford, Indiana, Times-Mail reported in its August 19, 1994, edition, that 60 Indiana artists were included in the show described, as follows, 

“The exhibit/sale...(in its second year, is )...a program designed to 'further the appreciation of Indiana art, to promote talented Indiana artists and benefit not-for-profit organizations...

Entries were selected by jurors: Brett Waller, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art; John Lofgren, executive director of the Greater Lafayette Museum of Art; Edward Quick, director of the Sheldon Swope Art Museum; Joyce Sommers, executive director of the Indianapolis Art league; and Steve Mannheimer, associate professor for the Herron School of Arts and and visual arts writer for the Indianapolis Star.” 

 Additional artists exhibiting included Ellie Siskind, Carol Strock-Wasson, Ginny Taylor, Lois Main Templeton and Leah Traugott, to name just a few.

Ed Funk

(1953-2013)

Ed Funk began his exhibition career with participation in a 4-person show at Ruschman Gallery. Paintings: Ed Funk, Gretchen Sigmund, Weillang Zhao, Philip Campbell ran in March and April of 1990.

In his early years, Funk exhibited rarely, and his next show would be the group show that marked the inaugural of Hot House gallery in the Faris Building in September 1994. The Indianapolis Star announced the new gallery venture, owned by artist Philip Campbell and wife Stacy, in its September 9 edition,

“A new gallery is opening tonight at 546 S. Meridian St. Hot House gallery's first show will feature a selection of works by Ed Funk, Ron McCorckle, Anthony (Popcheff), Sherri McGlothlin, Todd (Lantz) and a Russian artist named Olga, who still lives in Moscow.” 

 Ed Funk, Hot House Art Gallery exhibition postcard print, signed and numbered, 1994

Just a month later, Funk would headline the first solo show at Hot House, Gorkyisms and Picassoids, running from October through December. Steve Mannheimer would review the show in his Visual Arts column in the October 23, 1994, Indianapolis Star. It is a thoughtful, thorough, and long article that deserves to read and quoted in its entirety to better understand Funk's art of this period. However, space allows for just a few quotes here as follows, about mainly, Funk's paintings,

“In this show of 16 prints and six paintings, Funk demonstrates a wholly mature artistic vision and complete technical command of his materials.

Indeed, his vision is beyond mature: It's guaranteed, art historically tested and approved.

Start with the mature Synthetic Cubism of Picasso of the 1920s and '30s. Throw in the painterly exuberance and elusive metaphors of abstract American painting in the late 1940s and 1950s, most of which evolved from Picasso's ideas anyway...

Jargon and aesthetic genealogy aside, Funk is making art that looks like solid, slightly academic art from, say, 1957...”

Mannheimer notes that Funk acknowledges his source inspirations, as the show's title attests. The writer sums up his overall take on Funk's paintings in the show,

“...Funk's art mostly demonstrates a generalized familiarity with the devices and strategies of an all-purpose Ab-Ex aesthetic.”  

About the prints, Mannheimer writes,

“Funk goes beyond any overripe historical influences in his Cerebral Forest series of woodblock prints, a masterful, even bravura display of technical finesse.”

About Funk's working and reworking inks and a single woodblock, producing prints with a “family resemblance” but each markedly distinct, Mannheimer observes, 

“Where they differ – and differ dramatically – is in their hand-colored backgrounds and in the number of impressions and printed colors used on each sheet.

He orchestrates...with deft control, building a density of detail and nuance that becomes the main source of the series' delight.”

About a year later, Mannheimer would review another Ed Funk show. A four-person pop-up show by a gallery called 'A Moveable Feast' at Bushman Lofts on Fort Wayne Avenue. The show was titled Sun Flower Revolution. 

Mannheimer covers the show in his April 9, 1995, Indianapolis Star column,

“The show includes paintings, drawings, photographs and prints...by Klaas Weert...Rae Witvoet, Ed Funk and Anthony Popcheff.

Popcheff owns a large and, apparently, strikingly abundant patch of sunflowers on some land outside of town. Struck by the images of these towering flowers in their wintry death, the (four) decided that each would explore the imagery in his or her own way...

...Funk's eight monotypes are concise images of sunflower blooms and stems isolated against a clear blue field, presumably the sky.

Funk is a consummate printmaker who has a well-deserved reputation for elaborate, multilayered prints  resulting from multiple pressings and aimed at creating an endless but impenetrable field of nuances – the universe at a glance.

These, however, reveal his equal flair for the single impulsive gesture and dynamically off-balance, one-shot composition. They cut more quickly to the core of Funk's spiritual concerns.

A single dark dead flower floating serenely against a sky of morning blue – can Funk improve on that as an image of transcendence beyond grasp?”    

Ed Funk, Untitled Woodcut Print, 1997

More exhibits would follow for Ed Funk at Hot House gallery. He participated in a holiday group show  in November and December 1997 with Doris Vlasek Hails, Eric Schuster, Rex Alexander, Robert Berkshire, Ed Sanders, Paul Moschell and Joyce Garner. In May 1998, Funk would be in a two-person show with sculptor Kevin Robert Leslie.  And a few months later, he had a solo show, Sixteen Prints and Six Paintings, in August 1998.

Hot House gallery would close its Faris Building location in 1999, with the sale of the building by its owner that spring. 

Philip Campbell's gallery would be relocated to the Murphy Art Center (MAC), and reopen in December of that year. The MAC was an enterprise founded and owned by Campbell and Funk that consisted of art galleries, artists' studios, a coffee shop and Funk's own Dolphin Papers art supply store.  

Funk would appear at the In IN space at the Indianapolis Museum of Art July 27 through August 29, 1999. In December of that year, there would be a grand opening for the MAC and Hot House gallery, as well as Dolphin Papers. 

A year later, in September 2000, Ed Funk and Philip Campbell would celebrate their ten year anniversary as friends, collaborators and business partners, with their duo show at Hot House. 

When Hot House eventually closed its ground floor, street-front in the MAC, and Campbell moved his gallery operations upstairs to the second floor, Funk would align with new gallery enterprises that sprung up to fill the void. He would continue to have shows during the middle part of the 2000s at galleries, mainly in the MAC.

In July 2002, MAC's new Eye Blink Gallery exhibited paintings, sculpture, drawings and photographs by Matthew Davey, James Wille Faust, Ed Funk, Patrick Manning and Terry Steadham.

Also that month, Funk repeated a two-person show with sculptor Kevin Robert Leslie, this time at the art gallery of Indiana University – Kokomo, in the exhibition Recent Works. 

I was to attend the exhibition, and Funk's work in that show inspired me write about my observations, in one of my first art reviews, self published in a free newsletter called Fountain Art Fortnightly. It was a 2-sided Xerox that I distributed in the MAC, where I maintained a studio/gallery.  In the  newsletter article titled 'Blood, Sweat and Funk,' and dated July 28, 2002, I wrote of his Kokomo show,

“A first glance into the gallery, past a large Picassoid woman's head, reveals Funk's latest woodprints, numbering approximately twenty, in a cascade of subtle color all the way to the deep far wall. On that wall, a new painting, about five feet square, consisting of large loopy marks in red, orange/red, black and white...

Funk's newest compositions are less densely packed than some of his series from the last few years. But hold on – maybe these are just close-ups!

...Included...is a novel work Haiku which was just recently on display at Eye Blink in Indianapolis. The print displays the entire rotation of Funk's color wheel. A minimal scattering of  Western alphabet type mimics the namesake poetry wonderfully. A personal moment  is made enduringly universal. A work that is both about its title and is its title. That weird tension between suchness and label that is human consciousness.”   

Several years later, in May 2005, Funk had a solo exhibit, showing paintings and woodcut prints, in Ode to Clara, at Galerie Penumbra in MAC. 

That show would be followed in the same gallery, in March 2007, with Confessional Acts & Objects of Love, new woodblock prints bt Funk and mixed media collages by David Mattingly.  (image top of page)

With the sale of the Murphy Art Center in 2008, Funk would move his Dolphin Papers to Franklin, Indiana. His exhibition schedule, at least in Indianapolis, would slow to a crawl. He would have a show in the summer of 2012 at Jacksson Contemporary Art Gallery in Columbus, Indiana. Both prints and paintings were shown by Funk, in what would be the final exhibition during his life.

Tragically, both artists would die in mid-career, in late middle age, Engron first in 2007 and Funk in 2013.

The Recent Ripley Auctions, Replete with Their Work.

The Live Estate Art Discovery sale on October 29, 2025 contained fifteen works by Ed Funk. About half woodcut monoprints and half watercolor and ink paintings, with also one of each of an oil painting on wood and an assemblage with mixed media painting and found objects on a wall piece.

Some Jazz Thang, Ed Funk, 2007

The pieces date from 1995 through 2009, and several of the woodcut prints have names as follows; Hoagy's Rocker, 1998, Little Zen Rock, 2001, Quiet, 2003, Some Jazz Thang, 2007 and Lovely Cluster, 2009.  

Black predominates an early woodcut, Abstract, 1995, as well as many of the watercolor and inks paintings on paper from 2005.

Funk does not repeat himself in the works, rather he seemed to posit a brand new question with the first mark on each art work –  a mark that begins a line of inquiry. Questions asked and ultimately answered or left hanging with the last mark, the signature or title.

Mae Alice Engron, Untitled, detail

In the same auction, Mae Engron was represented by eight mid-to-large unstretched canvas oil paintings. Her stream of abstraction seems to border on the surreal, as many depict shapes, forms, lines and color that awaken ideas of the human figure, or room interiors, simplified landscapes or psychedelic dreams. Her paintings are without titles in the show, most are signed with her ME signature initials. Like Funk, she rarely ends up with a repeating theme among her canvases, with each an individual adventure, despite the colors, mostly on the red side of the color wheel from purples to orange. 

In the Fine Art Discovery Live! sale on January 7, 2026, Mae Engron had seven oil paintings, again mid-size, this time on mounted canvas. Subjects ranged from an urban landscape and a portrait  of an indigenous American figure in headdress, to abstract studies of  symbols, cubist experiments and a fleshy group of humanoid shapes gathered in a gray-zone. 

 Alice Engron, Untitled, detail

In the same sale Ed Funk was represented by the woodcut monoprint, Rivera, 2009, two large pastels on paper, one colorful and one in monotone black, and a watercolor and ink painting from 2005. 

Other Indianapolis artists active in the Gen X era whose works appeared in the Ripley sales are: Casey Roberts, with Evening Creeper, a Cyanotype print; Rex Alexander with a mixed media on paper abstract; Carl Pope with photographs and a letterpress poster; Ed Sanders with his stunning Super Hero Relaxing, an oil on wood from the last year of his life; Heroes and Villains: Hartwell, a mixed media collage on canvas by Mike Graves; Four Faces, an oil painting by Becky Wilson; Winged Deity, an oil by Justin Cooper; and Winter Interior Forest Landscape, an oil painting by Tom Keesee.  

Four Faces, Becky Wilson, detail

An Onslaught of Reds and a Grass Green Past.

My first introduction to the painting and life of Mae Alice Engron was just days ago, when coming across her many works in the recent Ripley Auctions sales. The reds first caught my eye – all shades from pure to pink, burnt sienna to orange. Her range of subject within an overall abstraction mindset and that similar range of hues that ran the gamut from almost figurative to color field, patterned, cubist, floral and mixed. And yet, her work shares not only a color sensibility, but a common touch –  her temperament and personality seems somehow essential among them. 

As for Ed Funk, I knew him well. For a period of twenty years, I examined his artwork in shows, I visited his studio often, I shopped at his store and watched him at work on his art. 

About two weeks before Ed Funk died in July 2013, I was to visit his store in Franklin and fell in love with a large and recent painting by him. The large canvas was about 5' by 5' in size. It was in the late, loopy style of thick visible brushstrokes that evolved from the earlier tightly enmeshed and thickly layered abstracts from the '80s and early '90s. 

My intent was to try to acquire it if we could agree on a price. I'd also have to arrange for transportation to move the large work, too big for my car.  But it was not to be, as before the deal was finalized, I was to hear the sad news of his death.   

I think of the painting often, its spacious white ground, with greens and golden browns. The action of Funk's thought, and the flow of his questions were captured like a song in the paint. If there were blacks, as there usually were in works throughout his life, they are lost to me now. A jazzy riff of endless summer and Indiana fields – are what I recall.  Like the view out of the window of my last drive to see him. His questions in that painting, just a memory now, fast moving streaks and a blur of green.

from The Franklin, Indiana, Daily Journal, March 31, 2016
on occasion of Ed Funk Retrospective at the Southside Art League, 2016

Mark Diekhoff, January 2026

See Also:

Mae Alice Engron - Encyclopedia of Indianapolis

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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