"Heal art" by returning favor for murals that soothed sick

By Harry McCawley

WORKS by some of Indiana's greatest artists will be on display for the next couple of months at the Columbus Museum of Art and Design in The Commons.

We're talking about people like T.C. Steele, Wayman Adams, Carl Graf, Jay Connaway, William Scott, Clifton Wheeler, Martinus Anderson and Francis Brown.

The display, which begins with a preview party at 5:30 tonight, is titled "The Art of Healing.

Appropriately enough, it's sponsored by the Columbus Regional Hospital.

But there's something even more fascinating about the exhibit than the subject and the artists.

That's the story of how these paintings were created and later saved.

They date to 1914 when construction was underway on what was to be called the Burdsal wing of Indianapolis City Hospital (later renamed Wishard Hospital).

Shared by all

Unlike the hospitals of today, patients were more likely in 1914 to be assigned beds in a ward that could house dozens of individuals in a single large room.

The Board of Health was given a financial gift by St. Margaret?s Guild Hospital to be used for decorating the wards. The president of the board , Dr. T. Victor Keene had a love for art and some pretty well-known friends in the Brown County art colony.

He contacted Clifton Wheeler and Wayman Adams and presented them with a vision. He asked that they and other artists paint a series of murals that would be soothing to the patients to aid in their recovery.

This was no small undertaking. The wards were huge, and the space to be covered in art measured more than a quarter of a mile.

Wheeler and Adams must have been masters of convincing others to join in their vision, because some of the most famous artists in what was known as the Hoosier Group volunteered to participate.

Pittance for artists

They were paid, but their commission was $75 to $100 a month.

Imagine, T.C. Steele was drawing the same pay that a union house painter would have gotten in 1914.

The work  and the crude methods of transportation , required many of the artists to stay in Indianapolis at the hospital through the year it took to complete the paintings. A few, like Steele, completed their contributions at their studios.

Productivity soared

In all, 36 murals were completed, and they weren?t small. Many were 5 feet high and 10 feet long.

The artists also donated more than 20 paintings to the project.

The subject matter was indeed soothing. The paintings were landscapes, allegories and a few portraits. The project director William Forsyth was involved in even the most minute of details, dictating that only materials of the highest quality be used and that the artists adhere to the original vision of keeping the works light and soothing.

He also was a man who was ahead of his time, directing that no lead-based paints be used.

Most of the murals were painted on canvas and mounted directly to the walls with heavy mastic.

Detioration begins

Unfortunately, when the artists left, time and some bad habits took their toll on the paintings. No-smoking areas were non-existent in the early 20th century, and even hospital wards were clouded with cigarette and cigar smoke, even from doctors.

Ceilings leaked and attempts to clean the paintings did more damage than good. Some of the murals were even painted over.

In 1967, renovations threatened the murals with demolition, but students from the Herron School of Art and Snodgrass Studios raised money to have some of them removed.

Jackhammers were the principal method of removing them from the walls.

Three years ago at a meeting of the Wishard Memorial Hospital Foundation, newly appointed member Anne Wishard was taken on a tour of the old Burdsal Wing, which had been abandoned and was under consideration for eventual demolition.

Workers had been in the area and had noticed different colors under the paint which had chipped away.

Hidden treasure

Underneath the coats of paint, which had been applied by house painters over the years, were some of the works that had been painted almost 90 years earlier by members of the Hoosier Group.

"It was just like those stories of paintings done by great artists centuries ago being discovered under layers of paint in some European buildings," she said. "We began to call it the Lost Collection."

Still in disrepair

The paintings that are to be displayed here were those that had been removed years earlier. Even they are in need of restorative work.

Their condition is one of the reasons for the traveling exhibit, which opens here.

The foundation hopes to use this and other showings to dramatize the need to raise money for the restoration work and maybe even save those works that are still on the walls of the old hospital wing.

Estimates on the cost are in the seven figures.

Another way of looking at that however is to consider what a quarter mile of paintings by the likes of the Hoosier Group would be worth today.

Consider how this art helped thousands of people recover.