The Hoosier Group was a group of
Indiana
Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...
Impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
painters working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Artists considered members of the Group include
T. C. Steele,
Richard Gruelle,
William Forsyth,
J. Ottis Adams, and
Otto Stark. Together they are primarily known for their renditions of the Indiana
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
.
Although the members of the group had disparate backgrounds and training, the Group gained its cohesion from the determination of the five to attend art school in Munich in the late 1880s. Following their return to Indiana, the group dominated the Indiana art scene through the 1920s. Forsyth, Steele, and Adams taught art at academies in the state and helped spread the group's ethos. Hoosier Group artists all exhibited regularly in the state for several decades thereafter and were instrumental in forming the
Society of Western Artists.
Following the appearance of Modernism at the 1913
Armory Show
The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was organized by thAssociation of American Painters and Sculptors It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of the many exhibition ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
and later
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, the Hoosier Group's visibility and sales declined dramatically. During this period, members of the group were aging and found themselves trapped in what became characterized at that time as an old-fashioned style of painting. Today, the works are highly-collectible and are found in many private and public collections around the United States. A number of collections, primarily in Indiana, include the works of all five. These include:
Haan Mansion Museum of Indiana Art in
Lafayette;
Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Shortridge/Indianapolis Public Schools Collection at the
Indiana State Museum, the
Columbia Club in Indianapolis;
Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art in
Bloomington; the
Richmond Art Museum in
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, a city in the United States
* Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...
;
David Owsley Museum of Art in
Muncie; the
Swope Art Museum in
Terre Haute; and
DePauw University
DePauw University ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Greencastle, Indiana, United States. It was founded in 1837 as Indiana Asbury College and changed its name to DePauw University in 1884. The college has a Methodist heritage and was ...
in
Greencastle.
See also
*
Irvington Group
*
Richmond Group
References
* Burnet, Mary Q. Art and Artists of Indiana. New York; The Century Co., 1921.
* Gerdts, William H. Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting, Vol. 2. New York: Abbeville Press, 1990.
* Gerdts, William H. and Newton, Judith Vale. The Hoosier Group: Five American Painters. Indianapolis: Eckert Publications, 1985.
* Krause, Martin. The Passage: Return of Indiana Painters from Germany, 1880 – 1905. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1990.
* Morton, Elizabeth. "Martinus Andersen and the Hoosier Group of Artists, 1910-15." 1915.
Martinus Andersen and the Hoosier Group of Artists (Working Paper)
External links
Otto Stark Papers
American landscape painters
American artist groups and collectives
American Impressionism
Indiana culture
Arts organizations based in Indiana
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