Much of Johnson’s art focused on his roots in South Carolina and his life in Harlem.  His work is very colorful and expressive and often tinged with humor.  After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and America went to war, Johnson produced numerous paintings and prints that explored the contributions of African Americans to the war effort.  His paintings depicted black soldiers engaged in infantry training, ammunition drills, actual battle, and war-related support services.  He focused on their heroism as well as the segregation of the armed forces with a combination of seriousness and his signature style of humor.

Training for War by William H. Johnson

Since the work under consideration was a serigraph, which meant that more than one image of Training for War existed, I wanted to find out more about his work in this medium.  I called the Library of Congress whose prints and photographs division contains a large collection of serigraphs by William H. Johnson.  I learned that the work is a combination of techniques – serigraph (screen print), pochoir (stencil print) and some hand painting.  Several cardboard cutouts were found in Johnson’s studio similar to images in his prints.  He made the prints using his own type of screening and hand painting technique which meant that they were not exactly alike.  The IMA was fortunate because the paper used in the print under consideration was art paper, a better quality of paper than Johnson often used for his prints.

Training for War would also be perfect for the July 2005 opening of the new American galleries; patriotic and timely, it would complement the museum’s Frederic Edwin Church Civil War flag painting and Arthur Clifton Goodwin’s Liberty Loan Parade.  This print would be the last of the five works sponsored in part by the Coalition of 100 Black Women, Indianapolis Chapter.  Two of these works are not being discussed in this series because they are in the Contemporary collection, but for your information these pieces are the sculpture Nappy Head Blues by Alison Saar and the painting In the Studio by William Majors.

Johnson’s prints are difficult to acquire because they have the same condition concerns as works by Jacob Lawrence, fading colors, warped paper, stains, etc.  They also have the same light and hanging restrictions as Lawrence’s painting.  In 1967 the Harmon Foundation gave 1200 works of art by Johnson to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and a large collection of his prints to the Library of Congress making it very difficult to find this artist’s work on the open market.  The print under consideration was from the collection of Thurlow Tibbs, an important African American collector, who left most of his collection to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C.  Having a work by Johnson in the IMA collection is a major coup, so don’t miss it in the American galleries where it will be on view until July when it comes down to rest until next year.

Loch Long by Robert Duncanson

The next step was to research the artist and the painting to make sure the landscape represented Duncanson’s best work. The artist traveled to Scotland many times bringing back numerous sketches that he turned into landscape paintings.  Some of these paintings are considered his most important pieces.  Research showed that Loch Long certainly belonged in this category.  Since the painting was being offered at auction, we could not bring it into The IMA to be examined by our conservation department prior to its purchase.  Our conservation department recommended a conservator near the auction who sent us a condition report.  Although the painting would require cleaning along with some additional work, this was not considered a deterrent to its acquisition.

Having taken all the necessary steps to make sure the painting would make an important addition to the collection and its condition was not problematic, I still had to decide on the maximum amount we should bid and find someone who would step in and purchase the work if the committee or the Board turned it down.  Considering all the research a curator does before suggesting a work be acquired by the museum, it is very unlikely that it would be rejected, but it is still necessary to be prepared.  I contacted a local art collector who agreed to purchase the work if it did not obtain approval.  We decided on a maximum bid, but not before researching the artist’s auction records.  It was necessary to also establish where the painting fit into previous sale prices and how much the museum, and in this case the collector, could pay.  Most auction catalogs contain estimated sale prices for each piece in the sale, but these estimates are not always reliable. It is critical to understand the art market and the painting’s place in it before deciding on a maximum bid.  I also had to determine which art acquisition fund could support this purchase.  Some of these funds are designated for specific types of art and others are general funds that can be used for any purchase. It is possible that none of the funds would be accessible, if they were already designated for other purchases.  Funds were found to be available that could be used to purchase Loch Long in the Alliance of the Indianapolis Museum of Art Fund.

I placed the bid by telephone, which is the typical method of bidding if it is not possible to attend the auction.  The final bid was double the auction house’s high estimate, which was not surprising.  Collectors and museums were beginning to recognize the significance of African American art and prices were climbing. Duncanson’s Loch Long was not only an important landscape but also a very striking one.  The final bid was one bid under the maximum the museum and collector were willing to pay, so we were extremely fortunate to be the high bidder.  The purchase was unanimously approved by the committee and the Board, which, as expected, eliminated any obligation on the part of the collector. After undergoing conservation, Loch Long was placed on view in the American galleries with the Hudson River School paintings already on display.

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

John Wesley Hardrick was one of the artists in A Shared Heritage exhibition, which was why research was being done on him and his work.  Little Brown Girl had been awarded the Harmon Foundation Bronze Medal in 1927. The Harmon Foundation presented awards to African Americans for distinguished achievement in the fine arts. The painting became so popular that a group of African Americans in an Indianapolis congregation took up a campaign to raise funds to purchase it for the museum. The sitter, Nellie Henderson about eleven years old, was a singer in the church choir at Allen Memorial Chapel where Hardrick was a member.  Hardrick chose this young girl to sit for a portrait required for his class at Herron.  Every Saturday Nellie’s father would bring her to the art school to sit for the artist.

The problem of how to bring the painting back into the collection had to be solved.  The museum could not buy back a painting that was already part of its collection, but it could compensate the dealer for her financial investment in the painting.  Negotiations are often difficult with any acquisition, but they were even more problematic since the IMA was trying to acquire a painting it already owned.  The dealer bought the painting in good faith and the seller knew nothing about its history. After numerous discussions, the dealer and the museum reached an amicable agreement that resulted in the return of Little Brown Girl after more than a 50-year absence. Through an accident of fate, Little Brown Girl was offered to the IMA at a time when I was researching Hardrick for the Shared Heritage exhibition.  Otherwise, I would not have recognized the work as ours or realize its importance to the artist and the collection.   However, fate cannot always be depended upon to make things right, so we now rely on strict rules and regulations along with meticulous record keeping to ensure that such a loss is never repeated.

The story of the departure of the John Sloan began in July 2006 when the IMA director received a letter from another institution requesting the loan of Red Kimono on the Roof for an exhibition on Sloan’s New York paintings.  The exhibit was scheduled to be shown at four museums from October 2007 through December 2008.  The letter was passed on to me,  the American art curator, and the museum’s registration department setting in motion a carefully documented chain of events that would lead to the departure of the painting. The IMA requires at least six months notice to process the loan of a work of art from its collection.
I assessed the loan request to decide if the exhibition would be appropriate for the loan of this important painting and decided that the exhibition was a significant overview of the artist’s work and both the painting and the IMA would benefit from the loan.  The conservation department examined the painting to assess its condition to travel and the registration department requested facilities reports from each of the institutions that will be presenting the exhibition.  There are numerous criteria that have to be met for the IMA to agree to lend to any institution, including appropriate fire protection standards, proper security guards, access to conservation staff in case of damage, no construction or renovation that might pose a risk to the work, proper humidity and temperature control and no food in the gallery space to name just a few of the things we consider before lending to another institution.  Even crate storage is taken into consideration to make sure the crate is properly stored to avoid damage or contamination.  Little critters in the crate pose a threat to any work of art.  The crate is carefully constructed by the IMA to withstand the rigors of travel and protect the work of art, so we want to be sure it remains in the same condition it was created.

Red Kimono on the Roof was deemed safe for travel. Sometimes the IMA requires a courier to travel with a work of art, especially if it is going abroad or if there are concerns about potential damage to a fragile piece.  Curators, conservators and registrars can be couriers as can their assistants if trained for the purpose.  The courier must be present during all phases of transportation and to oversee the hanging of the work in the exhibition space.  When the exhibition closes, the courier often returns to manage the process of taking the work down, assess its condition and accompany it back to the IMA.  If a courier is not required for the entire travel route, one can still be sent to the destination site to assess the work when it arrives. Before a work can go out on loan, the loan must be assessed by the museum’s Collection Committee and approved by its Board of Directors.

So, come and visit John Sloan’s Red Kimono on the Roof when it returns to its permanent place in the American galleries.  There is always a renewed appreciation for a work that has gone out on loan, along with the satisfaction that people who have not visited the IMA have had the opportunity to enjoy it.

Thornton Dial is an African American artist whose work is in the southern vernacular tradition, which means he is self taught with no formal art education and lives and works in the South (Alabama to be exact.) He makes sculptures and assemblages (wall hangings with things protruding from the surface) using discarded everyday objects that would otherwise wind up in a land fill. So essentially Dial is also an environmentalist. If you look closely at his art, not too closely because there are sharp edges that can leave nasty cuts on delicate skin, you will see mattress coils, paint can lids, old shoes, used clothing, buttons, chicken wire (he is also a chicken farmer), and plastic twine. Almost nothing in the Dial household wound up in the trash. He nails objects to a very large canvas that has been attached to a board, adds enamel spray paint and covers the whole thing in Splash Zone compound, the material used to keep boats water tight.

Dial expressed his feelings on the war in Iraq in 2003 by producing a very large wall hanging, 71 x 114 inches that shows a torn image of the United States flag. He titled it “Don’t’ Matter How Raggly the Flag, It Still Got to Tie Us Together.” He chose the flag because it represents the values that America stands for, freedom, liberty and equality. He showed it torn and tattered; because in that form it represents what Americans suffer when our government finds it necessary to aggressively protect these values.

Not only is this flag shredded, its painted red areas make it look like bloody bandages, which turns the entire canvas into a gory battlefield. The artist not only expresses the horror of war in this work but inserts images that suggest this country’s history of racial strife. Wrapped in these bloody bandages are figures representing a dead black soldier toward the upper middle left of the canvas and a white soldier on the far upper right. Although Dial shows them separate (a reference to America’s continuing racial problems), they are also equal.

Since these soldiers died for the same cause on the same battlefield, are wrapped in the same cloth and float on the same ground made from mattress coils, their racial differences no longer matter. The mattress coils are Dial’s pun – “We have created a hard bed and our only hope is the realization that we must lie in it together.”

The Indianapolis Museum of Art purchased Raggly Flag just a few months ago. It now hangs on the wall on the third floor bridge near the escalator. You should come to the IMA to see it (www.imamuseum.org for directions and opening times), because describing a work like this and showing you a picture is no substitute for the real experience. This work of art is truly an awesome sight to behold. Hopefully, you will enjoy it even better since you now know the meaning behind the objects that the artist chose to include in this piece.

The American galleries are changing. At least a part of these spaces will look different after July 14. We are always rotating works in the galleries, sometimes reinstalling the entire galleries incorporating different pieces, and even renovating galleries by changing the position of walls and painting them different colors or repainting them the same color when they look like they need it. We are rotating, reinstalling and renovating part of the American galleries on July 14.

A work in the American Modernist section of the galleries is going out on loan and another painting is going up to replace it – this is a rotation.

The American Scene, Urban Realism and Art of the American West are changing places in the galleries, so we are going to reinstall those three galleries to make more room for American Scene and Urban Realism art. Those galleries will also be renovated because the walls will be repositioned and repainted. The repositioning of the walls will allow viewers a more unobstructed view of the American galleries. We are also renovating the Early American Gallery by changing the paint color of the archway and repositioning the wall to again offer a more open view into the space.

We hope that these adjustments will make the experience of viewing the American galleries easier and more enjoyable. We think that enlarging the American Scene and Urban Realism galleries will allow us to bring out of storage some exciting paintings and offer a broader understanding of these important trends in American art.

We are not abandoning our Art of the American West galleries just making them more intimate and placing them more in context with the development of American art.

The IMA website shows a variety of American art that is currently in the galleries, but seeing the art in person will explain why it is difficult to appreciate a work of art by viewing a reproduction. The experience of viewing art in person is so much more satisfying and can even be an awesome encounter.