This is the beginning of a series of blogs relating to the IMA’s acquisition of art for its African American collection. Eight works by African Americans have come into the American Art before 1945 collection since 1993, the first of which has the most unusual story.
I was in the process of organizing the exhibition A Shared Heritage: Art by Four African Americans when I made my first African American acquisition for the museum in 1993. It was an atypical purchase because the painting, Little Brown Girl by Indiana artist John Wesley Hardrick, had been a gift to the museum in 1929. At that time the IMA was known as the Herron Art Museum or the John Herron Art Institute. The policy in those days for lending works from the museum’s collection was very broad and record keeping was not what it is today. This resulted in the painting being listed as missing in inventory in 1942. Repeated inventories failed to reveal its whereabouts. The painting remained unaccounted for until 1993 when it was offered to the IMA by a New York dealer because of the artist’s Indianapolis connection. A discussion with the dealer revealed that the painting belonged to a collector in Maine, but the trail leading back to the Herron Art Museum had gone cold. The museum’s director went to see the painting and noticed the number 29.40 on the frame, the wooden stretcher and the back of the canvas. This number confirmed the painting belonged to the IMA, since it was the accession number placed on the work when it was acquired by the museum. The number indicates that it was the 40th piece of art to be added to the collection in 1929.
Little Brown Girl by John Wesley Hardrick
Filed under: Art
