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

Street Scene, Algiers by Richard Brown Black

Orientalism in Indiana.

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

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

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

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

Who Was Richard Brown Black?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pride of Greenfield.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posthumous Honor and Family Tragedy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional Biographical Details.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark Diekhoff, November 2025  

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

The Epic Dramas of Artist Elmer Taflinger – Act Six

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

 

Puff Breathing Dragons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Curtain Call.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deus Ex Machina.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The postscript to his lament:

'And I framed the picture for her.' ”  

So words it was, from there on out.

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

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

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

Epitaf.

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

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

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

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

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

The other of his model. Of his students. 

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

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

Always he and his other.

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

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

Amen.

Mark Diekhoff, November 2025

Dedicated to Edward John Diekhoff, Jr.  1938 - 2025

See Also:

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

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

The Epic Dramas of Artist Elmer Taflinger – Act Five

Elmer Taflinger working on The Immortal Seesaw, 1957

Another One or Two that Got Away.

From the earliest days of introduction on the art scene stage of Indianapolis, Elmer Taflinger would contribute his talents in the support and decoration of the annual costume balls that were sponsored by the Indianapolis Artists Club as a fundraiser for Herron scholarships. His experience as a set designer for Broadway producer David Belasco positioned him as perhaps the local artist with the most experience in creating large-scale, decorative decoration and art. His participation is these events, and others like them, occurred regularly throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

Seizing upon this unique skill set of monumental scale decorative design and production, Taflinger would offer a proposal in 1947 to decorate the newly remodeled house of representatives and senate chambers in the Indiana Statehouse. The renovation had left space for the grand project of two murals, and the administration of Governor Ralph F. Gates had chosen Elmer Taflinger for the job based on his  proposal. Unfortunately, push back from the opposition party derailed the actual funding for Taflinger's project, and a new administration and electors came into office with different priorities, and Taflinger's dreams of a grand Indiana public mural project were quashed once more.   

The May 14, 1949 Indianapolis Star reports, regarding the cancellation,

“ Adornment of the newly remodeled Indiana state legislative chambers with $20,200 worth of mural paintings probably will be vetoed by the new economy-minded Democratic state administration.

Governor Henry F. Schricker said yesterday he favored use of the funds for 'a more practical purpose.' ”

Unfortunately, politics was to doom the latest Taflinger grand mural project. It all seemed petty finger pointing and grand-standing when new Governor Schricker's opinions of the prior Republican administrations renovations and proposed murals are covered by The Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger,  on May 17,

“He liked the old halls with all their tradition better. He called the remodeling an atrocity.

Squelching the proposal for the spending of $20,000 for the murals, Governor Schricker told the state legislative advisory committee currently: 'I think we had better use the money on Central State...which is badly in need of repairs' ” 

A couple of different newspapers around this time, did at least describe what could have been, had the State fulfilled its end of the bargain.  The May 30, Muncie Star describes the ill-fated Taflinger's plan for the the Senate chamber, whose cancellation by then was a fait accompli, with a glowing review that seemed to plead for the project's completion,

“Abraham Lincoln, who grew to manhood in Indiana, will have an impressive memorial in the state Capitol if plans are carried out to complete the remodeled Senate chamber with murals showing the emancipator as a youth climbing a Spencer County hill with shafts of sunlight  coming through the cathedral-like hardwoods.” 

The same day in The Indianapolis Star, the House chamber plan is described,

“Design for the murals in the House of Representatives includes views of every courthouse in the state and pictures of the national heroes for whom the counties were named. Woven into the designs around an 18-foot figure typifying Indiana would be scenes of the important industrial activities of the state.”

In a bitter twist of fate, Taflinger would not only suffer the wound of another lost big signature project, but he would also live to see what became of the blank mural walls in the years to come. The Depressionists would prevail when Works Projects Administration-style artists would ultimately complete the projects, rather than him. 

New York artist, Leon Kroll, was awarded the Senate chamber and completed, in 1952, his three panel mural depicting scenes of Indiana. The artist was later alleged to be a communist sympathizer, and the murals were ultimately removed in the 1970s during yet another politically-tinged remodel. 

Eugene Savage, of Covington, Indiana originally, was awarded the House chamber mural and painted Spirit of Indiana in 1964 (called originally Apotheosis of Indiana). This mural was likely to have haunted Taflinger with thoughts of what could have been.  The mural would outlive Taf, and remains in place to this day.

Nudge Me Two Times, Baby.

The next big thing for Elmer Taflinger would be heralded by a couple of possible stirring events in the artist's career timeline in the mid-1950s.  By this time, after the cancellation of his possible involvement in the Indiana State House murals, he settled back into teaching classes in figure drawing and painting at his atelier in the large former stable building in the side yard of the Indianapolis Propylaeum on the city's Old Northside. 

Elmer Taflinger studio location, Delaware Street

He had also built on his prior associations with the DePauw college art  department and taught and lectured there from time to time, as well as hosting students in his own studio in Indianapolis.

On the September 19, 1954, Indianapolis Star book review page, Corbin Patrick covered the recently released life story of the late David Belasco, the flamboyant and innovative show business producer,  in a biography published as Bishop of Broadway.  Recall that Belasco employed Elmer Taflinger as art director between 1914 and 1922.    

The review notes Belasco's tenancy toward embellishment and self-aggrandizement which perhaps are indicative more of the show business itself as opposed to the man's personality quirks. His accomplishments and adventures were spectacular without exaggeration, as Patrick notes in his column,

“...the biographer's task was complicated enormously by the fact the man was largely a self-inspired myth even in his lifetime. He rarely neglected an opportunity to improve on a good story...

...but his life was fabulous enough without the gilding his showmanship gave it.”

Truer words could not be said for the his protege Elmer Taflinger, who seemed to make use of these same tenancies, whether learned or innate, as he captained an art career of sequential set-piece spectacles, press release stunts and gossip column mentions.  The book's release, notoriety and the inclusion of a couple of photos of Taflinger with his mentor, may have got his show biz juices flowing again.  

 Another instigating nudge during this period may have been the newspaper coverage of Herron students preparing the Gauguin-inspired mural paintings for the annual Beaux-Arts Ball to benefit a scholarship fund and sponsored by the Indiana Artists Club. Although Taflinger had been art director in past years for this event, in 1956 he was on the ticket committee and the decorations were handled by someone else. 

Herron students, 1956

Perhaps it was yet another challenge to Taflinger's sense of mural-making mastery, as, by the next year, he was again in the art direction chair and responsible for decorating the event on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Herron Art Institute. 

The One-Day Megaproject.

Several different news columns in the Indianapolis papers between March and June 1957 would detail Taflinger's massive mural project for the event, Bal Modurne 57. On March 19, in The Indianapolis News, a first description of Taflinger's plans are detailed,

"Elmer Taflinger...is executing four gigantic murals to decorate the walls of the ballroom.  

The mural measures 26x78 feet. The figures of  David and Venus are the center of interest, with seven larger than life-size figures of modern artists and 15 figure compositions of modern paintings.”

A March 27 Indianapolis Star article reports that Taflinger had a hand in designing the invitations for ball, which were sent to notable celebrities such as Pablo Picasso, Salvadore Dali, Edward G. Robinson and Vincent Price.

The March 30 Indianapolis News contained a photo of Taflinger at work on one of the large panels for the mural the artist calls, at that time, See Saw. According to Taflinger, the mural depicts “the constant battle between the traditional and the modern schools of art.”

The gigantic scale of the mural is shown in a photo in the May 5 Indianapolis Star. Taflinger, sitting on a stool in front of just a single panel of four of the work is dwarfed by David's arm and a head.

Elmer Taflinger, 1957

The accompanying article by Ruth Ellen Banta goes on to describe the work fully, saying in part,

“Dali is pictured hanging upside down on a trapeze putting a steel mustache on David. Van Gogh is hauling up a bouquet of sunflowers...to give to Venus. Cezanne, who liked to paint green apples, is offering a green apple to Venus.”

Taflinger's surreal and thoughtful design is explained when describing another part of the mural,

“Standing by (Venus) is Henry Moore, a contemporary British (sculptor), pictured in surgeon's garb with an air hammer...Taflinger explained that Moore is sure that the green apple will disagree with Venus and is waiting to operate.”

Adding that,

"Moore is known for sculptures of women with holes for stomachs."   

Another panel of the work is described,

 “...artists Chagall and Lautrec are fighting a duel with tubes of paint to symbolize the fight to use more color.”

And finally, 

“Scattered around all three panels are hungry vultures...'waiting to pick the bones of those who create' and Susie, the finger-painting chimpanzee.

Also pictured are the Three Fates of mythology, spinning, measuring and cutting yarn. They represent the fates which govern artistic movements.”

On June 10, The Indianapolis News ran a post mortem of sorts, after the event, in and article with Taflinger about his technique in creating the humongous mural in such a short time-frame. He had purchased a Leica projector and special 50 mm lens to aid in the transfer of his design to canvas, saving 52 days work by his own estimation.

It is a shame that no critical review of the installed mural was published contemporaneous to its display at the ball. However, the photos in the papers of portions of See Saw as a work in progress, and a detailed study now in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, are indicative of a singularly impressive achievement that succeeds on the artistic merits of conception, design and execution, even if somewhat comic in theme and bombastic in scale. In a way, it's pop art just before pop art. 

The project would be recalled in late life by Taflinger himself, as a rechristened memory named The Immortal Seesaw. 

In an April 4, 1976 interview with Marion Garmel of The Indianapolis News, he vividly recalls the mural which, since its one and only opening night, had been rolled up and stored in his Delaware Street studio. 

He retells the stories from two decades before, about the mural, its content and its meaning. The mural's myth, the fossilized memory in his mind, a concrete reality that sat collecting dust just a few feet away. 

The Immortal Seesaw was an outlandish embellishment and an exquisite exaggeration in and of itself. A show biz blockbuster, if only for a day. 

Mark Diekhoff,  October 2025

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

The Epic Dramas of Artist Elmer Taflinger – Act 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

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.