Newfields Magazine Summer 2020

SUM MER 2020

Summer at Newfields Century Garden

Uncommon Threads

Lilly House

The Forecast for Fall

Magazine Editorial

Managing Editor Editor

Designer Photo Editors Rights & Reproductions Contributors

Photographers

Deputy Director of Marketing

Kara Kovert Pray Dylan Remes Jensen Emily Sogard Mattie Wethington Jarryd Foreman Tascha Horowitz Samantha McCain Veach Anne M. Young Irvin Etienne Emily Gralak Will Higgins Amanda Holden Amanda Kingsbury Robin Lawrence

Shelley Selim Emily Sogard Lydia Spotts Michael Vetter Mattie Wethington

Eric Lubrick Samantha McCain Veach Jonathan Berger

discovernewfields.org

INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART THE GARDEN LILLY HOUSE THE VIRGINIA B. FAIRBANK S ART & NATURE PARK MILLER HOUSE & GARDEN

Newfields Magazine is published by Newfields, 4000 Michigan Road, Indianapolis, Indiana 46208-3326. Questions or comments may be directed to the staff at 317-923-1331. Text and design Š 2020 Newfields. All rights reserved. Artworks published under fair use.

Newfields Magazine is printed on paper containing FSC-certified 100% post-consumer fiber, is processed chlorine free, and is manufactured using biogas energy.

(The FSC trademark identifies products which contain fiber from well-managed forests certified by SmartWood in accordance with the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council.)

SUMMER 2020

Summer at Newfields Summer is meant for strolls in The Garden with a drink in hand

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Century Garden

Making an Entrance

Anders Ruhwald brings an exhibition to The Garden celebrating the centennial of the Percival Gallagher -designed landscape and gardens at the Oldfields estate.

A look back on the many exhibitions that welcomed guests in the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion.

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Uncommon Threads

Fairbanks Park

Lilly House

Inside the delicate revival of a tapestry that is centuries old.

Celebrating 10 years of The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park.

A closer look at the Oldfields Estate with Historic Site Manager, Jean-Luc Howell.

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The Not-So-Secret Suffragette

The Forecast for Fall

May Wright Sewall was a lifelong advocate and community leader beyond her time.

Save the date for Harvest and the bounty of the season.

ABOVE: Anders Ruhwald, Century Garden, 2020. Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Š Anders Ruhwald.

Note to Readers As a cultural institution, we have a responsibility to be a leader in putting an end to systemic racism, beginning within our own walls. Inclusivity is a core value of Newfields and we explore how we plan to live that value in our most recent annual report which you can find at the website below. We welcome your feedback as we begin instituting change within our organization. discovernewfields.org/annualreport

CONTENTS

New at Newfields A pollinator meadow, specialty cocktails and events celebrating members.

NEWFIELDS

FROM THE DIRECTOR

To all Newfields members, friends, donors, and guests: We are so grateful to be surrounded by such a wonderful community of supporters. I know this time has been an adjustment for everyone, and I look forward to the time when Newfields can be completely open again as a place of rejuvenation and respite, indoors and out.

It has never been clearer to me that the Newfields campus is one of a kind.

As we all know too well, the global health crisis surrounding the spread of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a time in our lives we will never forget. These last few months have been trying for people around the globe. Our world is being put to the test. This is a time in which we have learned to connect with family and friends and engage with the local arts community through social media and online technology.

In an effort to support social distancing, the Newfields campus closed on March 17, 2020, and only essential staff remained onsite to keep the building running and secure. Almost 300 other staff members continued their important work from

their homes. This was something many of us have never done before, and it has brought its own set of challenges.

However, after the first few weeks at home, we got pretty good at email, video conferencing, and virtual meetings.

Even though most of the Newfields staff has been working at home of late, we are all anxious to get back into the normal swing of things. Since we anticipated being able to open The Garden at Newfields and the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park first, we planned accordingly, knowing that the Museum and our historic houses would follow later.

Just like everyone else, we have had to take the adversity head-on and be flexible.

The campus closure has really made us think about how we run our operations and what things can be made better. For the safety of our guests, we had to cancel all remaining programs through 2020.

Luckily, we were able to reschedule our most anticipated show of the year, Edward Hopper and the American Hotel, presented

by Schahet Hotels (as well as the accompanying culinary arts exhibition, Pop Up: Hotel Bar), Journey Into Light: Travels with JMW Turner, and many more.

Another change we decided to make during this time is transitioning this very magazine into an interactive digital publication. Since we’ve learned how to continue thriving in the digital world, we are more than confident that we can continue to provide our members with behind-the-scenes insight, straight-fromthe-experts interviews, historically fascinating material, cutting-edge ideas, and much more. We are dedicated to keeping this publication a member perk, and we know you will not be disappointed with what is to come. Please enjoy the last printed issue!

Thank you for standing by us during the last few months. Thank you for watching our experts share fascinating content online. Thank you for donating during a time of need. Thank you for showing your genuine support for Newfields.

Charles L. Venable, PhD The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO

SUMMER 2020

Newfields newest acquisition, Folded Circle Dynamics Red Phase III by Fletcher Benton is now on view.

Conservation funded by the Alliance of Newfields with additional support from Randall & Sheila Ott, and Beau R. Ott. Fletcher Benton, Folded Circle Dynamics Red Phase III, designed 1973, fabricated 1976. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Irrevocable Promised Gift of Jon and Molly Ott. Š 2020 Fletcher Benton / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Robert Irwin, Light and Space III (detail), 2008. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Purchased with funds provided by Ann M. and Chris Stack, The Ballard Fund, Nancy Foxwell Neuberger Acquisition Endowment Fund, Anonymous IV Art Fund, Lucille Stewart Endowed Art Fund, Martha M. Shertzer Art Purchase Fund in Memory of Her Nephew, Charles S. Sands, Roger G. Wolcott Fund, Gift of the Alliance of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Frank Curtis Springer & Irving Moxley Springer Purchase Fund, E. Hardey Adriance Fine Arts Acquisition Fund in memory of Marguerite Hardey Adriance, Emma Harter Sweetser Fund, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Crane Fund, Elizabeth S. Lawton Fine Art Fund, Cecil F. Head Art Fund, Mary V. Black Art Endowment Fund, General Endowed Art Fund, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore P. Van Vorhees Art Fund, General Memorial Art Fund, General Art Fund, James V. Sweetser Fund, 2008.358 Š 2020 Robert Irwin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

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NEWFIELDS

N E W AT N E W F I E L D S

while exploring the Art & Nature Park or catch a magnificent view from the Lilly Terrace.

Generous ongoing support for The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature park is provided by Ed Fehnel and The Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation.

MILLER HOUSE POOL MAKES A SPLASH The Miller House and Garden was designed for J. Irwin Miller, his wife Xenia, and their five children and was completed in 1957.

Although the pool was always part of Dan Kiley’s design for the garden, it wasn’t installed until 1963. Will Miller, the youngest of the Miller children, was born in 1957, so Xenia didn’t want a pool on-site until he was able to swim.

OPENING OF THE PATH AROUND THE LAKE

N E W AT N E W F I E L D S

Newfields is continuing work along the White River to stabilize and restore the path around our 35-acre lake. Over the past few decades, the berm between the lake and the White River, built by a construction company in the late 1960s, has slowly eroded to the point of becoming impassable. The project mission of Newfields is to stabilize that berm and restore native vegetation to the area.

Now that construction is complete, you'll find an eight-foot-wide mulched path that connects the lake and the White River and allows guests to safely view and access both. The path around the lake is now open for guests to explore and enjoy.

Erosion mitigation and restoration is generously supported by the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, The Ball Brothers Foundation, Jim & Nancy Carpenter of Wild Birds Unlimited, and Toni & Bob Bader.

The pool is a beautiful addition to Kiley’s original design and is surrounded, like the perimeter of the garden, by a large arborvitae hedge. This epitomizes what Kiley referred to as “green rooms” that are an extension of the floor plan of the house. The pool was used by the Miller family from 1963 on, and eventually it was even a source of enjoyment for Irwin and Xenia's grandchildren. The space was used to highlight the designs of Richard Shultz’s 1966 outdoor furniture collection.

In 2004, the pool was closed and remained so until 2019. As part of an effort to revitalize the garden and the use of outdoor spaces at the Miller House and Garden, the pool was refurbished. Many of the original pieces by Richard Schultz have been reintroduced to the pool deck for a nostalgic view into the past.

POP UP: HOTEL BAR OPENING OF THE WILD BIRDS UNLIMITED NATIVE POLLINATOR MEADOW The Wild Birds Unlimited Native Pollinator Meadow will be moving forward this summer thanks to a transformative gift from Nancy & Jim Carpenter. Their lead gift will support priority projects related to preserving and showcasing the natural habitat throughout campus. This year, guests will meander through mulched pathways providing a more up-close experience with the flora and fauna of The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park. We will continue invasive plant management in the meadow to prepare the area for planting in 2021. This summer, we will begin planting woody species, including oaks, redbuds, tulip trees, and other natives, along the outside edge of the meadow. Starting in summer 2021, we will start large-scale, herbaceous and woody planting of the meadow. In its final phase, the project will include more than 100 native plant species and over 35,000 individual plants. Come see it for yourself

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Visit Edward Hopper and the American Hotel, presented by Schahet Hotels, and learn about the late, iconic artist’s fascination with the transience and anonymity of hotels, motels, and other forms of lodging. Then, escape to Pop Up: Hotel Bar, the newest experience from the Culinary Arts team at Newfields.

Indulge in vintage drinks such as a Manhattan, Tom Collins or even a Coca-Cola Classic. We even encourage you to make eye contact with other people, unlike the disconnected souls often featured in Hopper’s paintings—and wear your best existential threads.

The only downside: you won’t be able to charge your bar tab to your room.

ABOVE: Photograph of swimming pool and house by Balthazar Korab, 1960s, Box 38 Folder 6. Miller House and Garden Collection, 1953-2009 (M003). Archives, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

SUMMER 2020

Century

Garden

By Shelley Selim Curator of Design and Decorative Arts and Interim Director of Curatorial Affairs

Photography By Samantha McCain Veach

ABOVE: Anders Ruhwald and Shelley Selim with unfinished artworks. Artworks: Anders Ruhwald, Century Garden, 2020. Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Š Anders Ruhwald.

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NEWFIELDS

See it Anders Ruhwald: Century Garden When: Now through October 11

Where: The Garden More information: discovernewfields.org.

In June, The Garden was enriched with colorful interventions of flora and sculpture in Anders Ruhwald: Century Garden. Ruhwald —a Danish-born ceramic artist based in Chicago— staged five installations throughout the landscape, intertwined with planting arrangements developed with the Newfields horticulture team.

Ruhwald and I began discussing this exhibition in relation to the centennial anniversary of the Oldfields estate garden (1920–1925), which makes up about half of The Garden today—largely the areas surrounding the historic Lilly House. They were designed by landscape architect Percival Gallagher of the famed Olmsted Brothers firm, after the estate owners, Hugh and Jessie Landon, discovered his work at a friend’s house in Maine. Like most American country estates built in the late 19th and early

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20th centuries, the garden design followed formal traditions established two centuries earlier in England and continental Europe.

Ruhwald was especially interested in how the garden’s function has evolved over the past 100 years, and how different species in its plantings—native, non-native, “invasive”— can operate metaphorically.

Here, we discuss the creative process behind this exhibition.

Shelley Selim: You are known for creating many large-scale, site-specific installations.

How do these types of exhibitions appeal to your goals and interests as an artist?

Anders Herwald Ruhwald: It is extremely hard for me to think of a sculpture without a context, and so I mostly generate work with a specific site in mind. To me, this is a way to address a continuum of objects as I see it, where everything can be plotted on a gradient between pure utility and pure art—but nothing exists in the extremes (to paraphrase the art historian George Kubler).

And so the site becomes a place to work with and against to create the necessary friction from which an idea can form.

SS: Century Garden will be your first fully outdoor installation. What endeared you to this project and what has been challenging?

AHR: Most of all the scale. The exhibition has had a number of permutations, as I have been trying to figure out what is feasible when you have a massive garden at your disposal. The scale is a particular kind of challenge in the sense that I have no walls or ceilings to work up against. Instead, is it the ever-changing nature of, well, nature, that needs to be taken into consideration. I conducted several site visits over the past year to see how the garden changes with the seasons. Naturally, the one thing you can’t plan for is the weather of the summer, which will determine how the garden will bloom and feel.

Very early on I wanted to include the horticultural crew in the development of ideas for my interventions, and I have been particularly interested in finding plant types and species that are normally not associated with a European-style garden like Oldfields.

The sculptural interventions will function together with the plantings as a sort of odd take on traditional garden design. Classical figures and planters will merge into sculptural forms that are at once body and vessel— sometimes either, sometimes both. The formal nature of the sculptures will continue to change as the plants in and around them grow.

SUMMER 2020

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SS: Century Garden addresses the 100year anniversary of the Oldfields garden, designed by Percival Gallagher. How does the garden’s history inform your installations?

AHR: Obviously this is a significant history— the Olmsted firm played an outsized role in designing the early 20th-century EasternAmerican landscape. My hope is that this intervention can begin to question the Eurocentrism of the Oldfield garden, what it really represents, as well as what might have changed over the past hundred years.

For instance, Oldfields has gone from being a private manor to a semi-public museum and garden—so the use of the space has changed significantly, as have the people who visit it. The United States is a beautiful and complicated place, made so by its diverse population and the many cultures that have come to live here. Yet often formal gardens—which increasingly double as public spaces today—in the eastern part of the country lean heavily on English, Italian, and French designs and plant types that might not always be the best suited for the climate. With the interventions, I am interested in exploring alternatives for both horticulture and sculpture in these spaces.

SS: This has been a collaborative project with Newfields’ horticulture department.

How have they played into the development process for this exhibition?

AHR: They have been part of the conversation pretty much from the get-go, and their insights have really changed the nature of the exhibition. Early on Jonathan Wright, The Ruth Lilly Deputy Director of Horticulture & Natural Resources, mentioned that the weather during the exhibition period would be similar to a tropical climate, which took me by surprise—you normally do not associate Indiana with the tropics.

This became a starting point in terms of what kinds of plants we could find and use, looking at species from the tropical belt across the world as well as native plants from the area. The plant types then become an odd international mix, all joined together in heat of Indiana’s tropical summer.

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SS: How have you found inspiration for the ceramic sculptures you’re creating?

AHR: I am interested in this idea of mixing bodily forms with the utilitarian. My work circles around bodily representation in terms of how my body works to create my sculptures, and through the idea of the artist as form-giver: a person who gives form. A central concern within this is the idea of the vessel as metaphor for the body. For Century Garden, I am attempting to bring these concepts to a kind of extreme. There will be both abstracted bodily forms, as well as vessels as part of the installation, and, at times, it will be difficult to decipher whether the botanical elements grow around or from within the sculpture.

Each of the five interventions will have a particular relation to the place it inhabits. For instance, the sculptures in the pond by the Ravine Garden are all glazed ceramic, so they will absorb water from the pond and hopefully encourage algae to grow on the surface. The installations will change appearance throughout the exhibition’s run, similar to how the plants in the garden change through the seasons.

SS: Throughout your career, you have worked largely with clay. Has the material taken on any new meaning or significance with this project?

AHR: The ceramic elements in each intervention will be different. I make tests and models for each of the pieces, and then make a ton of tests of the glazes and clays to make those ideas a reality. This is the first time I have had to contend with plants growing within the work, and it creates some challenges for how they are constructed. But I also embrace some of the particularities of this site through the language of ceramics and its possibilities.

I have also had to buy a special new kiln, which must be assembled and disassembled every time I fire it. This allows me the flexibility to make work at a range of scales—anywhere from 9 to 80 inches in height—without having to fire the whole kiln every time.

SS: Last year you premiered Unit 1: 3583 Dubois, a multi-room installation in a Detroit apartment. Century Garden is a

very stark visual contrast to that work. How have these installations affected you differently throughout the process of creating them?

AHR: Oh, I don’t even know where to begin.

These two installations are pretty much as different as can be within my practice and so has the effect of making them. Just on a simple formal level, I have amazing institutional support curatorially, technically, and horticulturally when making Century Garden.

I essentially willed through Unit 1:3583 Dubois on my own, finding partners to help realize it with as I went along. In this way Century Garden has been a much smoother process and less draining emotionally.

Naturally, I have been in a very different headspace thinking about sculpture for a sun-filled garden than when I was working towards a totally enclosed, charred interior lit by a single light bulb as I did for Unit 1.

SS: What do you want our guests to take away from this exhibition?

AHR: I don’t like telling people what to think about my work, but hopefully some of my answers above will give some sense of my intentions behind Century Garden.

SS: Where is your favorite place to travel in the summer?

AHR: Anywhere my family is. My partner, the wonderful artist Marie T. Hermann, and I migrated to the United States about 15 years ago, and, naturally, we both miss being around family and old friends, so we often spend our summers with them. Fortunately, we come from a family of travelers and this takes us to Copenhagen, Ligura, Vienna, and Geneva—all places I love to visit.

Anders Ruhwald: Holes and Century Garden are made possible by The Efroymson Contemporary Art Fund, an endowed fund at the IMA. Additional support for the exhibition is provided by the Danish Arts Foundation, Ms. Nancy L. McMillan, and Emily A. West.

SUMMER 2020

By Amanda Kingsbury Contributor

ABOVE: Sopheap Pich, A Room, Room, 2014. Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. © Sopheap Pich.

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Over the years, the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion has welcomed visitors in unexpected ways.

Here is a sampling of the unique pieces that have been featured: William Lamson: Divining Meteorology April 2011

Allora & Calzadilla: Body in Flight (Delta) March 2012

Erwin Wurm: Euclidean Exercises January 2015

Summer Wonderland: Spectacular Creatures June 2018

The Brooklyn artist’s monumental sculpture and sound installation transformed a former communications tower into a soundproducing object. It even received weather signals from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla reproduced a full-scale, state-of-the-art business class airline seat. But the seat turned into an unlikely balance beam when real-life gymnasts performed choreographed routines on it.

Wurm invited viewers to complete his works of art. On empty platforms, he offered instructional drawings, along with props such as shoes and cleaning bottles to be used in different poses.

Brightly colored snails climbed the walls as part of a campuswide exhibition from Cracking Art, an eco-minded artist collective based in Italy.

FLOW: Can You See the River?

September 2011

Spencer Finch: Following Nature February 2013

The project was part of a series of installations at stopping points along the White River, helping people understand how their daily activities impacted the river and other bodies of water.

Visitors used a large map on the floor to locate their homes in relation to local bodies of water.

The Brooklyn artist, whose works investigate the light and color of the natural world, wanted to capture water’s movement and reflectivity. So he created glass panels that hung from the ceiling and multihued transparent vinyl that covered the windows.

Sopheap Pich: A Room February 2014 The artist created a Cambodian bamboo forest of sorts, filling the pavilion with nearly 1,200 real and artificial bamboo strips.

A 26-foot space inside the bamboo became a contemplative escape.

Richard Wentworth: False Ceiling—Indianapolis September 2015 Hundreds of books dangled from the ceiling, all donated by the public. The installation played off the nature of books as commonplace objects yet powerful symbols of knowledge.

Holes July 2020 A large-scale light sculpture by Anders Herwald Ruhwald catches and casts dramatic shadows. Dozens of ceramic rings hang suspended from the ceiling, each projecting circular shadows that change with the sun’s beams during the day and with the illumination of small bulbs at night.

Monika Sosnowska September 2016 The monumental Market sculpture suspended from the ceiling was inspired by the metal stalls that line the outdoor markets in the artist’s hometown of Warsaw, Poland.

ABOVE: Alyson Shotz, Geometry of Light (detail), 2011.

Courtesy of the Artist and Derek Eller Gallery, Work with support of Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo. © Alyson Shotz.

The Efroymson Contemporary Art Fund is an endowed fund that was established in 2006 by the Efroymson Family Fund to support work by emerging and established local, national, and international contemporary visual artists through a rotating installation program in the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion.

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SUMMER 2020

Ball-Nogues Studio, Gravity’s Loom (detail), 2010. Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. © Ball-Nogues Studio.

Richard Wentworth: False Ceiling—Indianapolis, 2015. Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. © Richard Wentworth.

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Uncommon Threads

By Amanda Holden Conservator of Textiles

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SUMMER 2020

Over only a half century, and under the patronage of three popes, artists from Botticelli to Michelangelo transformed the Sistine Chapel into the Renaissance masterpiece known today. In 1513, the newly elected Pope Leo X was faced with the challenge of how to continue the magnificent decoration of the chapel and commemorate his rule. He commissioned Raphael, one of the most acclaimed artists of the High Renaissance, to create designs for the most expensive luxury item at the time—tapestries. Raphael created cartoons, or preparatory designs, for 10 tapestries depicting scenes from the Acts of the Apostles. The original tapestries were woven in Brussels between 1517 and 1521 and are still displayed at the Sistine Chapel on special occasions.

Almost immediately after the tapestries were created, royalty and nobles started commissioning copies. One copy was woven in 1630

by Hendrick Mattens, a master weaver in Brussels, Belgium, one of the most important tapestry-production cities of the 17th century. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes was donated to Newfields by The Clowes Fund, and became part of the museum’s permanent collection in 2016. In this weaving, the first in the series of 10, Christ encourages Peter, who has been unsuccessfully fishing in the Sea of Galilee, to lower his fishing net one more time—the result being the miraculous, abundant catch. Mattens embellished the original design by adding lush foliage and exquisitely detailed borders that personify the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues.

The tapestry changed hands several times over the centuries, until it was purchased in 1958 by Dr. George Henry Alexander Clowes and his wife, Edith Whitehill Clowes. For many years The Miraculous Draught of Fishes was displayed in the atrium lobby at the Clowes Memorial Hall at Butler University. In 1990 it was moved to the IMA on long-term loan, where it hung above the grand staircase in the courtyard of the Clowes Pavilion.

After being on nearly continuous display for a half century, the tapestry is in need of conservation stabilization. In the fall of 2019, Newfields was awarded the prestigious Bank of America Art

Conservation Project Grant, which will allow for the research and conservation of this tapestry. One remarkable aspect is its sharp color on the reverse side. Its thoughtful owners through the centuries shielded the back with a lining that protected it from light exposure and pests. The brilliant colors enable the conservation scientists at Newfields to analyze the dyes to determine which areas are contemporary repairs, identify the original dyes, and help understand the original appearance of the textile.

The tapestry will then be shipped to Belgium, where the preeminent De Wit Royal Manufacturers of Tapestry will clean and stabilize the artwork. There the tapestry will be cleaned to remove the grime accumulated during years of display. The conservators will use aerosol suction, a technique developed and patented by De Wit in 1991. They will custom-dye and stitch support fabric to the back of the tapestry to strengthen the weakest areas. The deteriorating thread that was used to hand-sew the holes between color changes will be resewn. The tapestry will then be lined with a custom-dyed fabric, which will protect the back of the tapestry for centuries.

There is no exhibition space within the IMA can safely accommodate the tapestry’s size and low-light-level requirements. However, along with the Bank of America grant, Newfields received a generous gift from The Clowes Fund, in honor of Bill Marshall’s more than 30 years of service to the Fund, to create a custom display for the tapestry. A new gallery wall will be able to accommodate the tapestry’s size, and a lighting upgrade will limit the amount of light exposure, so the tapestry can be displayed for a longer time. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes will welcome guests as they enter the newly renovated Clowes Pavilion in 2022.

LEFT: Hendrick Mattens after Raphael, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (tapestry) (detail), about 1630.

Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2016.372.

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N E W LY AC Q U I R E D

The Abstract Patterns

OF WI NTER STOR M

By Michael Vetter Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art

Roger Brown is best known today as a member of the Chicago Imagists, a loosely affiliated group of Midwestern artists who rejected the minimalist, abstract styles favored on both US coasts for much of the 1960s and '70s. The Imagists made figurative paintings and drew on imagery from popular culture and advertising, often combining their influences in a psychedelic or surreal style.

Brown grew up in Alabama in a strict religious household. He moved to Chicago in 1962, and like many of the other Imagists, he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), a locus for the movement. Brown’s professors at the SAIC encouraged him to draw on a variety of visual sources. Artist Ray

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Yoshida, who was Brown’s painting instructor, organized trips for students to the Maxwell Street Flea Market to look for inspiration, while Whitney Halstead, an art history professor who was an early scholar of non-Western, folk, and vernacular art, took groups to the Field Museum of Natural History to study African and Oceanic objects. Brown referenced this range of visual material throughout his career, blurring the distinction between fine art and mass consumer culture.

After a road trip with his partner, architect George Veronda, in 1972, Brown began to turn to the American landscape as a subject in his work. Winter Storm (1993) is a characteristic example of Brown’s landscapes—the composition transforms

nature into almost-abstract patterns that recall quilted textiles and the paintings of early American modernists such as Marsden Hartley and Arthur Dove.

Winter Storm was given to Newfields by Indianapolis collectors Michael Robertson and Christopher Slapak, whose extensive collection of Chicago Imagist paintings will be the subject of a 2021 exhibition at the IMA. This piece was one of the first Imagist works to enter their collection— for them, the work recalls the paintings of the Hudson River School, sharing the same strong sense of grandeur and mystery.

ABOVE: Roger Brown, Winter Storm (detail), 1993. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Gift of Michael J. Robertson and Christopher A. Slapak, 2019.42 © The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brown Family. Courtesy of Kavi Gupta and Venus Over Manhattan.

SUMMER 2020

Fairbanks Park 10 YE AR S

By Michael Vetter Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art

The site that we now call The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park was given to the IMA by the Indianapolis construction firm Huber, Hunt, and Nichols in 1972.

Before it became part of the Museum campus, the land had been used as a farm and then a quarry. Over the next two decades, the Museum received proposals to develop the site—potential uses included an apartment complex, a golf course, a school, and a venue for symphony performances. The IMA declined all of these bids, preferring to keep the area in a more natural state.

The earliest concept statement for developing the land into an art and nature park dates to 1994. The site was then called "the Island,” and was mostly closed to visitors, save for the occasional nature walk or birdwatching group. Recognizing the land’s immense potential as a natural space within the city of Indianapolis, the Museum sought to develop it in a way that would minimize changes to its rugged character. The 1994 proposal estimated that one to three new works of art would be commissioned for the park each year, with temporary works rotating in and out.

The IMA partnered with Indy Parks Greenways and the Indianapolis Water Company (owners of the Indiana Central Canal) to officially begin work on the art and nature park in 1999. Planning

materials from this period stipulate that new art commissions must be responsive to seasonal changes, including flooding, and be produced from renewable materials.

In 2006, the Museum announced receipt of an $11 million grant from the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation to create Fairbanks Park. It opened to the public in 2010 with commissions by eight artists—later installations included FLOW: Can You See the River? by Mary Miss and Chop Stick by Visiondivision. In 2012, best-selling author John Green, husband of former IMA Curator of Contemporary Art Sarah Green, published the young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars. Set primarily in Indianapolis, the novel includes a scene where the main characters visit Fairbanks Park and see Free Basket by Los Carpinteros and Funky Bones by Atelier Van Lieshout. The book was adapted into a successful film in 2014, turning Funky Bones into a local landmark.

More recently, the IMA has received substantial donations from the Fairbanks Foundation and Kent Hawryluk to commission new works. Going forward, I would like these artworks to recall the prerogatives for commissions established early in the park’s history. This includes the use of renewable and locally sourced materials, the ability to adapt to site changes (including flooding), and the temporary exhibition model that allows

for a dynamic rotation of works throughout the park.

Eventually, I would like Fairbanks Park to realize the goal of one to three new commissions per year that was first described in the 1994 proposal. These works should also draw more fully on the fascinating history of the land, including its use by Native American communities.

As the park celebrates its 10th anniversary this summer, you can expect to hear more about our new commissions, as well as improvements to trails and native plantings that will make it an even more rewarding place to visit.

The Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation has generously donated a total of $25 million in grant dollars since 2001. The contributions over the years have been used for infrastructure improvements in addition to art installations.

LEFT: Type A, Team Building (Align) (detail), 2010. The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres at Newfields, Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. © Type A. RIGHT: Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion, 2010, designed by Marlon Blackwell Architect. The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres at Newfields. © Marlon Blackwell Architect.

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Some

Like It Hot

Irvin’s Top 5 Tropical Plants Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii,’ red Abyssinian banana. This plant has gorgeous burgundy-infused foliage and it gets huge in year one, like 8 to 10 feet tall.

Put it in a pot and it stays much smaller.

By Irvin Etienne Curator of Herbaceous Plants and Seasonal Garden Design

At long last, summer. Summer and along with it, all that heat and humidity. As much as I complain about that heat and humidity, the fact is I need summer. I need summer because I need tropical plants to help me find my joy. And whether you know it or not, you want me to have my joy. Trust me.

Canna ‘Pretoria,’ canna. It’s been around a long time but remains one of my top three. Incredible foliage of yellow with green striping topped by hot orange flowers. Beautiful plant from day one until frost.

Those tropical plants and I need the summer heat and humidity to reach our best selves. And not those mild Pacific Northwest or northern Maine summers. We need sticky “oh my lands, Imma gonna die from this heat and humidity” summers. We’ve had cooler, less humid summers and they felt great! But let me tell you something. My bananas never got as big. The cannas weren’t quite as lush. There was an actual visual difference. I want 10-foot-tall bananas. Amateurs can have the 6-foot ones. That won’t do for me.

Codiaeum variegatum, croton. Multicolored leaves of orange, red, yellow, burgundy, black, and green that go with every color.

Happy in sun or shade. The perfect plant to tie sunny spot to shady spot. Great in containers, too, so make it a houseplant in winter.

I don’t know when I became obsessed with tropical plants. I’ve always been drawn to the gaudy, I suppose. I love all the color they give, especially from foliage. With tropicals, you can have every color but true blue without even relying on a single flower.

All you need is leaves. But it is more than color. It’s the lushness of growth, the bold textures, the “other than Midwestness” that tropicals possess.

People always ask why I don’t live some place warmer since I love the tropicals so much. Trust me, if you heard me carry on about the horror of winter like I do, you’d wonder too. I actually like having seasons other than hot or warm, wet or dry. There’s no doubt in my mind I appreciate spring, summer, and fall so much more because of the hatefulness of winter. Maybe I like the challenge of growing tropicals in a temperate climate. I’ve often said that if I lived in the tropics I would be trying to grow sugar maple and beech trees.

Don’t repeat this, but truth is my ideal weather is sunny and 72 during the day, 55 at night. That would be heaven. It just wouldn’t be heaven for my tropicals. So, welcome summer. Newfields needs you. My tropicals need you. My joy depends on you.

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Aglaonema, Chinese evergreen. A rugged houseplant that was utilitarian and rather drab, until breeders infused it with sex appeal. Once only available in shades of green and white but now available in intense shades of pink and red. Great as an outdoor shade plant for summer but still tough, so also a great houseplant in winter or year-round.

Musa basjoo, hardy banana. Yes, hardy.

As in 14-below-zero hardy. It is best to put down 18 or more inches of mulch or put a cage around it and fill with leaves.

Once established, it normally grows to 8 to 10 feet. Make it super happy and you can hit 15 feet. Totally tropical. Totally hardy. No excuses.

SUMMER 2020

Lilly House

Historic Country Estate

By Will Higgins Contributor

Originally there was to have been a fancy, mansard-roofed guardhouse at the Michigan Road entrance to Newfields. It was supposed to be not just a phone-booth-with-a-stool affair but something substantial, a place a person could occupy comfortably while discouraging folks from sneaking onto the beautiful property.

It was part of the comprehensive design for the grounds drawn up in the 1920s by the landscape architect Percival Gallagher, a partner in the Olmsted Brothers firm. For reasons lost to history—maybe it was a matter of cost-cutting, maybe crime wasn’t such a concern in the 1920s—the guardhouse was never built.

As Historic Sites Manager, Howell is responsible for making sure all historic structures on the Newfields campus are in good working order. There are more of those than you’d likely imagine: The large Lilly House, the not-small Newfield house, a “recreation building,” the Madeline F. Elder Greenhouse, a chauffeur’s cottage, a gardener’s house called “the Double,” a root cellar, a barn, three pump houses, and five bridges.

All of these structures are about 110 years old, except Newfield house built in 1939, and the 1940 recreation building. It’s critical to maintain all of them, even the root cellar, Howell says, “Material culture is important: How people used space, how they organized themselves. It’s human culture and if it’s not in front of you, you forget about it.”

Which means Jean-Luc Howell has one less thing to worry about.

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NEWFIELDS

Howell, born and raised in Indianapolis, majored in anthropology at Purdue University and then got a master’s degree in museum studies from New York University. He worked at several museums in New York before taking the Newfields job in 2015.

“Historic preservation has always interested me, and there aren’t many encyclopedic museums that oversee historic buildings, let alone two national historic landmarks,” he said. “Also, it’s nice to be close to my family.”

Newfields’ historic structures occupy 26 acres, or half the campus’s high ground, the part the Lilly family owned. The Lillys, the second owners, moved to the property in 1932 from central Indianapolis. The original owners, the Landons, sold the estate not because they went bust in the Great Depression but because Hugh Landon’s second wife, Jessie Spalding Walker Landon, died in 1930, and Mr. Landon needed a change. After Jessie’s death, Hugh’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, moved back with her husband to Oldfields to be with her twice-widowed father. They eventually all moved to their newly built mansion called Four Winds off Spring Mill Road. The house still stands and is now called Alverna.

Alverna is Oldfields’s equal, except for one important thing: its vast grounds were carved up and subdivided years ago.

Oldfields’ grounds, shielded from economic pressure first by the Lillys’ business success and now by Newfields’ endowment, remain whole.

Howell marvels at that. He says the Oldfields estate “is possibly the only intact country estate in the Midwest. It actually looks no different than it did back in the day.”

But then he quickly corrects himself, “Oh, but those trees are new,” he says, pointing to the several dozen red oaks that line both sides of the Allée, the mansion’s grand, linear front yard.

By “new” Howell means they were planted in the 1930s or '40s as replacements for two rows of failing elms planted by Gallagher the decade prior.

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Lilly House is now a museum, but it was a private home from the time it was built in 1913 until 1966, and so underwent many alterations and re-decoratings.

These home improvements can be telling. Soon after the Lillys moved in, in the early 1930s, they relocated the front door about 10 yards to the south, so it lined up better with the Allée.

“The Lillys were more symmetrical than the Landons,” Howell observes. The Lillys added a library—one of J.K. Lilly’s hobbies was collecting rare books.

One interesting improvement the Lillys made was this: on the south side of the house, on the second floor, in front of large, glass French doors that open onto a small balcony, they installed a sturdy steel door. Crime, not an immediate issue a decade earlier when the Landons balked at Percival Gallagher’s guardhouse, had suddenly become a concern following the March 1932 kidnapping of the 20-month-old son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh.

The Lillys hired armed guards to patrol the grounds and to even drive their two children to school.

That steel door is not solid steel but rather steel-framed with steel bars about six inches apart. The effect would have been flat-out prison-cell except that the bars were decorated with … seahorses.

Even Howell is perplexed.

“Why seahorses?” he wonders. “No idea.”

Generous ongoing support for the preservation of the Lilly House is provided by Mr. Pete & Mrs. Ruth Nicholas, Drs. Irene & William W. McCutchen, Jr., and Mr. Eli Lilly II & Mrs. Deborah Lilly.

SUMMER 2020

G E T T I N G T O K N OW

Jean-Luc Howell Historic Site Manager

By Amanda Kingsbury Contributor

Q. If you could live the life of one historical figure for a day, who would it be?

A. Do I get to change what they did or just go along for the ride? If I could change what they did, then Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Seeing how the world would be different without World War I would be a wild look into the multiverse. If I’m along for the ride I’d go with Siddhartha Gautama, on the day of his full awakening. Because who doesn’t want to know what getting truly “woke” feels like?

Q. You like to read historical fiction. What’s the last book you’ve read, that you’d recommend?

A. More historical than fiction, but it would be The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone. It’s part travel writing, part biography, part “so that’s why there are Japanese cherry

blossoms in Washington, DC,” and answers other mysterious questions that come to mind while shopping for produce, like, “Why does that orange have a belly button?”

Q. You recently received a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Indianapolis Arts Council. What’s your plan?

A. I’m taking a two-week road trip along the East Coast, from the Newport mansions in Rhode Island to the Biltmore outside Asheville, NC, and visiting as many estates and historic houses as possible. I’ll also be continuing an art project where I make wax rubbings of interesting manhole covers that I find while traveling. That comes partly from my interest in built urban environments, partly from the process of making, and partly because they look cool as prints and T-shirts.

Q. Is there any significance or a story behind your first name?

My maternal grandmother is French, so my parents gave all their children French names.

I think Papa wanted to call me Luke, but Mama really liked Jean-Luc Ponty at the time.

Maybe…

Q. You’re in a bowling league (with a lifetime high score of 222). Any other hobbies or interests?

Riding my bike, camping and hiking, brewing kombucha, gardening, trying different beers, and riding my bike to places to try different beers.

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NEWFIELDS

Mary Wright Sewall, circa 1880, taken by the Indianapolis photography studio Marceau & Power. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-75447.

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SUMMER 2020

The

NOT-SO-SECRET

Suffragette

By Robin Lawrence Manager of Curatorial Affairs

When May Wright Sewall moved to Indiana in 1871 for a teaching position, soon after graduating college, she found camaraderie in the Indianapolis Women’s Club. Indiana was only one of five states to form a women’s rights organization within three years of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Though the club had not made much progress, it laid the groundwork for Sewall’s decades-long quest for equal rights for women.

In 1878, Sewall gathered like-minded community members to discuss the enfranchisement of women and the possibility of forming an Indianapolis suffrage association.

Doing so overtly was socially and legally hazardous, so her invitation was circulated through secret means. As Sewall recalled, nine women and one man “not mutually acquainted, but the most courageous of those to whom the call had come,” met to discuss “advanced ideas” concerning women.

The group made one big decision that evening—to not hide their advocacy. They named their organization the Indianapolis Suffragists and advertised their next meeting in the local paper. Soon after, the organization’s meetings grew in attendance and Sewall was selected to represent Indiana at the Jubilee Convention of 1878. The event was hosted by the National Woman Suffrage

Association in Rochester to celebrate the 13th anniversary of the first Seneca Falls gathering. Sewall’s star was on the rise, and she soon became lifelong friends with civil-rights advocates Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass.

gallery. The Art Association of Indianapolis was formally incorporated on October 11.

Twenty-two years later, Sewall participated in the ground-breaking ceremony for the John Herron Art Institute, which would become the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1969.

The Hoosier community was inspired by Sewall, who was noted as being “a social clockmaker who gets human machinery into shape, winds it up and sets it running.”

Through letter-writing campaigns, petitions, and community meetings, the Indianapolis Equal Suffrage Society promoted an equal-voting rights bill that was passed by the Senate and House, only to be defeated in the General Assembly in 1883 due to a technical error which kept it off the official legislative record.

In the early 20th century, Sewall turned her attention to the cause of world peace, asserting that equal partnerships between men and women would create a society of reason. Sewall dropped out of public life in her later years, but her mark on American history and our Hoosier landscape was indelible. In Indianapolis, she had founded or co-founded over 50 organizations, including the Contemporary Club, the Propylaeum, Indianapolis Women’s Club, and the Indianapolis Equal Suffrage Society.

Sewall was also involved in Indianapolis philanthropies and social organizations, and wanted to create an organization for the study and promotion of art. An organization called the Indianapolis Art Association did exist at the time to display the work of local artists, but the all-male club had not been able to advance its cause beyond single exhibitions. So on April 5, 1883, Sewall and seventeen other women drafted articles of association to cultivate and advance art, art education, and establish a permanent

Sewall died July 22, 1920. She had lived long enough to know that her tireless quest for the right to cast a ballot was successful. The 19th Amendment was passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, though not ratified until after her death. Sewall once said, “My country is the world, my countrymen are all mankind,” which seems fitting for a pioneer who helped bring equality to the national ballot box and a world’s worth of art to Indianapolis.

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NEWFIELDS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Dining in

Garden Terrace

By Lydia Spotts Associate Archivist & Librarian

When The Beer Garden reopens in its new location, it won’t be the first time food and celebration is a focal point in Garden Terrace on Newfields’ campus. Culinary recreation, however, was not the primary focus of the 1939 recreation building design for J. K. Lilly, Jr. Frederick Wallick, an Indianapolis native and renowned American Country Place Era architect, drafted plans that included a small kitchen, but devoted the majority of the space to a game room, an exercise room, and an indoor and outdoor pool.

Earlier, Wallick had redesigned the Oldfields residence in 1932, after the Lillys bought the estate from the original owners, the Landons.

The Lilly family generously donated Oldfields in 1966, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art repurposed existing buildings and opened the Krannert Pavilion in 1970. Initially, the Alliance funded the renovation of the recreation

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building and operated the Garden Room Restaurant with a combination of volunteer and professional staffing from November 1970 through September 1974, when the Museum assumed management of this visitor amenity. According to the July/August 1975 Museum newsletter, the Garden Pavilion Restaurant officially opened June 1 and offered lunch, wine and cheese (from 2 to 5 pm), and dinner.

The venue was also available for private events and by the spring of that year, guests were entertained by a baby grand player piano during lunch and a professional violinist on weekend evenings.

Later known as The Garden on the Green, the restaurant hosted festive meals echoing museum exhibitions and embracing the seasons, much like how the Culinary Arts Department does today.

During the 1979 exhibition Fabric of Jewish Life, guests indulged in a luncheon of deep-fried kreplach, cabbage rolls, noodle kugel, matzo ball soup, potato

latkes, and knishes. A seasonal event, Candlelight Dining, ran for a month, ending on Valentine’s Day, and featured a gourmet meal accompanied by wine and music. A management change accompanied a final rebranding to The Garden Terrace Restarant in late 2002, but the recreation building’s restaurant years came to a close just a year later.

In January 2004, the facility reopened as a full-service special events venue.

Recently, construction has begun to enhance the area for outdoor entertaining.

The Stout Reference Library is open to the public noon to 4 pm Thursdays. The Archives are open by appointment. Learn more at discovernewfields.org/research.

ABOVE: Recreation Building for J. K. Lilly, Jr., sheet no. 2, 1939. Newfields Architectural Drawings. Archives, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

SUMMER 2020

A LOOK AHEAD

The Forecast for Fall

By Emily Gralak Public Relations Intern

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NEWFIELDS

This October, Harvest is back and better than ever.

Traverse The Garden in crisp autumn air against a backdrop of changing leaves on 100-year-old trees throughout the Oldfields estate. Stunning displays of pumpkins, straw bales, cornstalks, dried florals, branches and grapevines that will amaze and inspire you. Enjoy your favorite fall treats such as carmel corn and a special cider cocktail while immersed in a campuswide sea of 7,900 pumpkins, gourds and squash of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

HARVEST October 2–October 24 Delight in the spirit of fall in an extended month-long festival of growth, abundance and renewal. The two-part celebration has something for everyone in Harvest Days and brand-new Harvest Nights.

During the day, enjoy The Garden overflowing with spectacular horticulture displays. In the evenings, come back for a late-night extravaganza on a winding path through The Garden lit by thousands of glowing pumpkins.

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HARVEST DAYS During the week, traverse The Garden in crisp autumn air against a backdrop of changing leaves on 100-year-old trees throughout the Oldfields estate. Stunning displays of pumpkins, straw bales, cornstalks, dried florals, branches and grapevines that will amaze and inspire you.

Become immersed in a campus-wide sea of 7,900 pumpkins, gourds, and squash of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

HARVEST NIGHTS After dark, guests are invited to embark on a brand new, multisensory nighttime experience. Thousands of multicolor glowing pumpkins will light up the night as you walk along a forbidden forest path, never before open to Newfields guests. Imagine: jack-o-lanterns as far as the eye can see perched high above in the dense trees of a secret path just outside the road often traveled. If you loved the magical twinkle of Winterlights, you will be blown away by the full, bold palate of light on the illuminated pumpkin path.

SUMMER 2020

Are we there yet?

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Road trips and vacations with friends and family can be fraught with tension and drama—that’s part of the fun—but there’s no freedom like the freedom of the open road.

To celebrate the opening of our latest exhibition Edward Hopper and the American Hotel, we asked you to share some of your favorite vacation photos from

the 1920s through the 1960s.

Check out more of these blasts from the past in a special slideshow in the exhibition, which features over 100 objects

by Hopper and 26 other artists.

Edward Hopper and the American Hotel, presented by Schahet Hotels, will be on display through October 25th.

1) Dave, Marion, and Cindy at Outermost House.

—DAVID MASON

2) Dinosaur Park, Rapid City, South Dakota.

3) My parents’ 1948 honeymoon car trip to Wisconsin. My father got a speeding ticket on the wedding night.

—RICK BEARDSLEY

—BOBBIE CAMPBELL

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NEWFIELDS

5

4

7

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4) We had the time and money to stretch our legs to get across the country.

Wouldn't be caught dead in anything less than our best.

—CHAD FRANER

5) Car breakdown in front of large building in Manhattan on the way to the World's Fair. My father said, “Hey, go check the sign on the side of that big building” as we waited for help with the overheated car. The sign said "Empire State Building."

—RICK BEARDSLEY

6) My grandmother Joann, pictured second from the left, poses on the Ingalls Bay Beach in Omena, Michigan, in 1927 with her summer friends. These women spent every summer on this beach, as do I. These are the grandmothers that raised us, watched us swim, told us tales of our nearly 100-year-old cottages, and observed cocktail hour at 6 pm sharp.

7) I'm guessing this photo of my grandmother was taken in 1930. My grandmother had polio as a child and wasn't able to walk until adulthood, but as an adult she traveled the world with her geologist husband, my grandfather.

—MINDY HUTCHINSON

—ROBIN LAWRENCE

Edward Hopper and the American Hotel is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in partnership with the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

The organizing curator is Dr. Leo G. Mazow, Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator and head of the department of American Art, VMFA.

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Edward Hopper and the American Hotel is presented

by Schahet Hotels.

Lead support is provided by Charles L. Venable & Martin K. Webb and Drs. Marian and Patrick Pettengill. Additional support provided by Ms. Nancy L. McMillan and Brad & Terri Warnecke.

SUMMER 2020

Distinguished Service Award

Jim and Pat LaCrosse receive Newfields’ highest honor

By Mattie Wethington Public Relations Manager

When it comes to Newfields and the city of Indianapolis, there is one particular couple that has single-handedly worked to make each of them thrive. Jim and Pat LaCrosse have been members at Newfields for nearly 40 years, and they have donated countless volunteer hours, making an exceptional impact while sharing their love for culture with many.

This inspiring passion and commitment to Newfields has made them welldeserving recipients of Newfields’ highest honor, the 2020 Distinguished Service Award.

Since the early 1980s, Jim and Pat LaCrosse have been fond of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and all that it brings to the Indianapolis community. This fondness quickly transitioned into devoted membership and volunteerism.

Pat LaCrosse started her volunteer journey with Newfields in 1983. Since then, she has served on the Board of

Trustees, acted as Board Secretary, been a dedicated docent in the IMA galleries, served on the Collections Committee, the Environmental & Historic Resources Committee, and was once a member of all six Affiliate Groups. Pat was also an instrumental leader in the success of Second Century Society, including leading tours overseas. Jim and Pat are both current Newfields Life Trustees.

Along with the LaCrosses' dedicated volunteerism, Jim and Pat have also donated vital philanthropic support to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, including the most recent conservation project of Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE sculpture in 2017. At the time, this work of art, a crowd favorite, needed crucial conservation treatment due to its time outdoors in Indiana’s climate. After the treatment was complete, the monumental sculpture was brought indoors to welcome guests into the

IMA galleries for generations to come.

“It speaks to the world. It speaks to the growth of Indianapolis and wrapped up how we feel about the IMA and the city,” said Jim and Pat LaCrosse on their motivation for funding the conservation of LOVE. It is truly remarkable how their love for a city and this cultural destination flourished into years of memories, service, and a lifetime of achievement. Newfields is honored to have such devoted leaders and are thrilled to celebrate Jim and Pat LaCrosse as the 2020 Distinguished Service Award winners.

ABOVE: Robert Indiana, LOVE (detail), 1970. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Gift of the Friends of the Indianapolis Museum of Art in memory of Henry F. DeBoest. Restoration was made possible by Patricia J. and James E. LaCrosse, 75.174 © 2020 Morgan Art Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing No. 652, Continuous Forms With Color Acrylic Washes Superimposed (detail), 1990. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Gift of the Dudley Sutphin Family, 1990.40 © 2020 The LeWitt Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

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NEWFIELDS

REMEMBERING

Pillars of Newfields

By Mattie Wethington Public Relations Manager

Richard (Dick) D. Wood

Mark M. Holeman

(1926–2020)

(1919–2020)

Dick and his late wife, Billie Lou, were devoted and cherished supporters of Newfields for more than 50 years.

Mark passed away this year at the age of 100, after a successful career in landscape architecture and the founding of this company, Mark M. Holeman Inc., in 1965. Mark and his wife Carmen have been passionate supporters of the Indianapolis Museum of Art for a remarkable 50 remarkable years.

Dick served on the IMA Board of Governors from 1984 to 2003.

During his tenure he served as Vice Chair, Chair and President.

He was a member of the Art, Audit, Finance, and Development Committees, and was a “These two great men were member of the IMA’s Horticultural Society and Design Arts Society. Mr. and Mrs. Wood one-of-a-kind supporters for also belonged to the Smith Circle of the Newfields. It is philanthropic Founders Society, Newfields Legacy Circle, leaders like them that help and were Life Trustees. Most recently, Dick organizations such as was a recipient of Newfields’ highest honor, Newfields thrive. We are so The Distinguished Service Award, in 2015.

Dick Wood is well known in Indianapolis for his successful career at Eli Lilly and Co., where he served as President from 1972 until his retirement in 1991. At the time of his retirement, Eli Lilly and Co. had become the seventh largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in the nation.

grateful for the fond memories we were able to share with the both of them. Their legacies will be remembered for generations to come."

— Charles Venable, The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO.

Dick and Billie Lou made significant contributions to Newfields throughout their lives, including creating the Richard D. Wood Art Endowment which made several acquisitions possible, and gave a special contribution to save 100-year old trees in The Garden.

During his tenure, Mark served on the IMA Board of Governors from 1987 to 1995, as well as Chair and Vice Chair. For more than 20 years, he served on the Museum’s former Environmental and Historic Resources Committee, and was a member and former President (1979) of the IMA’s Horticultural Society. He was also a member many affiliate groups, of the Newfields Society at the Director’s Circle level. He was a Life Trustee, and a member of the Robert Indiana Circle of the Founders Society. In 2015, Mark received Newfields’ highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award.

The Holeman’s support over the years has not gone unnoticed. In 1988, they made a generous gift to the IMA after which the Carmen and Mark Holeman Gallery was named. Other significant contributions include campaign gifts and several gifts towards the operations of the Holeman’s gallery, including funding the purchase of two Ingrid Calame pieces for the IMA’s permanent collection.

ABOVE: From left to right: Richard Wood, Anna White, Mark Holeman, and Randall Deer. THis was taken when the all received the first Distinguish Service Awards Newfields ever presented in 2015.

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SUMMER 2020

GUIDELINES

Jo Ellen

Meyers Sharp

Editor’s note: Guidelines is a feature where we ask Newfields members to take us on a “tour” of their favorite parts of our campus. This issue’s guide is Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp, a selfdescribed “hortiholic” and award-winning gardening writer.

LILLY HOUSE AND OLDFIELDS If I could pick only one place to show off Newfields, it would be in front of Lilly House on the original Oldfields estate. From the door, you look down the long, wide Allée to the fountain and Three Graces, but your eyes do not see the road. From Three Graces looking toward the house, again, the road becomes invisible.

Landscape architect Percival Gallagher designed this effect to present us with unspoiled, uninterrupted views of the Oldfields landscape. This scene opens the door to explore how landscapes and their designs can enrich our lives. It’s a “try this at home” opportunity.

THE DESIGN GALLERY Imagine all the finest examples of contemporary design for homes, offices, and elsewhere, all in one place. As you walk along the Design Gallery, you can’t help but smile at the Ashoka table lamp, designed by Ettore Sottsass as part of the Memphis Group design.

What fun that lamp is. It will be tempting to try out the Bubbles chaise longue, a creation of layered corrugated cardboard by architect Frank Gehry, but of course, you’ll refrain.

The gallery features several designs by Indianapolis’s own, the late Michael Graves, including his famous Tea & Coffee Piazza. There are fine examples of early–but still lusted-after–furniture designed

by Charles and Ray Eames.

WANDERING THE GALLERIES TWO LINES OBLIQUE DOWN, VARIATION III Remember playing statue when we were little? A friend would grab our arm, spin us and let go, and we stopped when we became “the statue.” It’s no wonder we think of sculpture as immobile. The late South Bend, Indiana, artist George Rickey changed that. He segued from static paintings to sculpture that moves.

I like looking out the windows at Rickey’s Two Lines Oblique Down, Variation III. Designed to move with the wind, it looks like the two stainless steel bars will collide, but they never do. The sculpture sits just outside the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion and it’s just as entertaining outdoors.

I was a student in Ian Fraser’s Art Appreciation 101 class at IUPUI when I wandered into the IMA and noticed Georges Seurat’s The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe. We had just studied Seurat and his style of painting called pointillism. Tiny, distinct dots of color form Seurat’s image, but you don’t really notice them until you get up close.

Probably one of the IMA’s most famous paintings is Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed. This large, beautiful piece connects with the visitor as something familiar, a popular image he or she may recognize.

LEFT: Installation view of the Design Gallery. Artworks © their respective creators.

RIGHT: Georges Seurat, The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe (detail), 1890. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Gift of Mrs. James W. Fesler in memory of Daniel W. and Elizabeth C. Marmon, 45.195

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Newfields 4000 Michigan Road Indianapolis, IN 46208 discovernewfields.org

Let's keep in touch

General support of Newfields is provided by the Arts Council of Indianapolis and the City of Indianapolis; Indiana Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; Lilly Endowment Inc.; and Nicholas H. Noyes Jr., Memorial Foundation.

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