GARY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT DENIES MISMANAGEMENT OF ART COLLECTION VALUED AT $500,000
POST-TRIBUNE
BY: SHARLONDA L. WATERHOUSE

Original oil paintings by esteemed artists such as Theodore C. Steele, Frank Dudley and Karl Buehr have lined walls in Gary schools since the early 1900s.

The collection began as a tool to teach fine arts and instill culture under pioneering Superintendent William A. Wirt in 1906, but it has been reduced in the past century to an elusive, dwindling asset, often locked away from children's eyes.

Some fear the district is close to losing an irreplaceable part of its art and educational history — whether by mismanagement, decay or mysterious pilfering.

Don't ask Superintendent Mary Steele whether the district has failed to oversee its precious art properly. She doesn't like disclosing details and won't show premium pieces, which are allegedly kept in a secret vault.

Neither can Steele account for why a collection once boasting more than 200 works has been nearly halved.

“I don't know if any are lost; they shouldn't be lost,” Steele says, but declined to allow the Post-Tribune to see inside the vault for verification.

“We know the paintings are there,” she said.

About 121 art pieces remain in the district, according to an inventory released by the public information office. That's down from 133 pieces just 12 years ago. And down more than 87 from a 1939 count.

There is no record of formal auctions or sales in the past decades, so just what happened to the paintings entrusted to the stewardship of Gary Schools?

Neither Steele nor anyone on the School Board claims to know details. Formal tracking is lacking.

According to inventories obtained by the Post-Tribune, the district has failed to document whether they can locate at least five paintings: “Casinera” by Gerald Cassidy, “Indiana Dunes” by Helge Hopkinson, “Portrait of Daniel Webster” by Dorothy Jennings, “The Ash Tree” by Allen E. Philbrick and, most importantly, “Dunes, Lake Michigan” by Frank Dudley.

The Dudley, which was in the central administrative building in 1993, was then appraised at $2,500 by Michael A. Nickol of Mishawaka, who said it was in “excellent” condition. While it may exist somewhere in the system, it is no longer in the computer inventory of the district.

In shrinking, the district's art collection also has downsized in dollars.

The works of art, whether accounted for or gone, are lucrative, ranging from $600 in value to more than $100,000 each.

The works of highest value and artistic merit are in the vault — like paintings by T.C. Steele and Edward Redfield.

That's a pity to some who feel the collection should be seen and enjoyed. With the district on the verge of selecting a contractor for a new appraisal, there also are whispers that some of the paintings might be sold. Many art enthusiasts and community members, including School Board members Michael Scott and Deborah Morris, are against any sale.

Art as education

Beyond the vault, pieces still hang in schools, a treat for teachers and pupils. But they are subject to the shifts in heat and cold that wear on canvas and oils. At Emerson, a few paintings not only have holes, but are also losing flakes of paint.

Still, teachers are grateful to have the art in-house and wish more of it were available to students.

Emerson art teacher R. Steven Sutton, an educator for 23 years, is well-steeped in how Wirt anchored his “Gary Plan” or work-study-play academic model on original art.

“Wirt believed that students needed to know how to appreciate ballet, plays, debate and fine arts. Hanging original artwork on the walls was part of that,” Sutton said. “As Wirt's work-study-play method caught on, this was practiced in places like St. Louis, Denver, Chicago and New York. They all believed in purchasing original artwork.”

As decades passed, it became Gary tradition for high schools to receive works bought and bequeathed by each graduating senior class, Sutton said. Emerson's collection is filled with gold name plates showing the years of the classes that donated works.

It is not uncommon to see Sutton in the hallways of Emerson discussing color, composition, backgrounds and schemes with students by using the works as teaching aids.

“I use them in all my classes ... to have the ability to walk into the halls and find real examples of portrait, landscape and still life is wonderful,” he said.

Sutton said molds, architectural fragments and pottery also are used to teach students. However, such resources have diminished. Some have been taken away to be restored but never returned.

“Emerson used to have some pottery,” he said. “I wonder whatever happened to that.”

The district's 1993 appraisal refers to three listings of Acoma Pueblo pottery circa 1900 and an American Indian set of Tullerosa Pottery crafted in 1100 A.D., but the list didn't specify locations. The superintendent did not return messages seeking an explanation of where the pottery is.

The art means a lot to students, said Brittaney Coundiff, a writer for the school newspaper, The Emersonian. She said students “stop and check out the art on the walls and in the hallways” on the way to class.

Fellow student David Parker, 18, said having the art in-house “is really inspirational.”

Other school districts, like Indianapolis Public Schools, have established task forces to oversee their fine arts collections. In Chicago, their works are photographed and detailed and uploaded to an online Web site for educational purposes.

School Board member Scott said lack of funds has prevented the district from doing more with its art. But, in the future, he'd like to see better galleries created and safety methods implemented.

The works

The school district has 121 works of art, carrying an estimated value of $511,850 according to a 2005 inventory. That's down from 1993 when Nickol Fine Arts of Bremen estimated the collection, then 12 pieces larger, at $534,450.

Barry Baumann, an Illinois art restorer, believes the works in Gary's collection — creations by Frank Dudley, Paul Sargent, Charles Dahlgreen, T.C. Steele, Adam Albright, Julius Moessel and Edward Redfield to name a few — are by highly regarded artists.

“Dudley is still unrecognized, but he had a rare ability to capture the scintillating essence of the outdoors. He painted in broad brushwork and with very few strokes and colors. He was able to create panoramas of space. I believe he is a great landscape master,” Baumann said.

In 1939, the district had 12 Dudleys, according to a catalog kept on file at Indiana University Northwest's Calumet Archives. A 1993 appraisal shows that the district had seven Dudleys, including “In Lilac Time,” “Lupin,” “Snow Clad” and “The Winding Dune Stream.” A 2005 inventory shows Dudleys ranging from $5,000 to $1,500, but they could easily go for higher on an auction block, appraisers say.

“The Gary schools, they have some real nice Dudleys,” said Gregg Hertzlieb, curator for the Brauer Museum at Valparaiso University. Hertzlieb recently toured the district's collection to select works for a retrospective on the Indiana Dunes painter.

He chose the four that were of good quality — “Night” (1927), “After the Storm” (1927), “Duneland” (1951) and “Butterfly Weed” (1928). He said the pieces were in the central administration building, Webster Elementary School and Wallace High School.

Brauer's 2006 exhibit on Dudley will run from Aug. 15 to Dec. 3. He's asked Gary to loan him the works for photographing this year and then he will borrow them again next year for the exhibit.

“With Dudley, you couldn't classify his style. ... The closest thing was impressionism, but strictly speaking, he wasn't an impressionist,” Hertzlieb said. “In addition to being a painter, he was an environmentalist and was responsible in large part with getting the dunes preserved as a state park. What I really like about his work is that he did really lovely paintings of sites just 15 minutes down the road. He was a local master.”

Hertzlieb said Dudley's works will appreciate in value if well maintained: “Dudley is an artist whose prices are rising. They are not super, but they have a lot of worth.”

T.C. Steele is another valuable artist locked away. His works sell for much more than Dudley's. One Steele listed in the 2005 inventory, “Valley Mist,” has an assessed value of $9,000. Sutton, of Emerson, said Steele has “international acclaim.” He believes some Steeles and Dudleys could be worth six figures.

“I've done 10 to 15 Dudleys and the same number of Steeles,” Baumann said. “For me, Steele was incredibly prolific and, at his best, is breathtaking. He's known for painting over his own pictures, so some of his works are not as strong. But, he was in a hurry to capture whatever landscape essence he saw.”

Even greater than Steele, Redfield's “Lumberville” has an assessed worth of $85,000. It's in the vault, records show. As is a piece valued at $45,000, “Rabbit Hunters” by E. Martin Hennings.

Gary's collection of Karl Buehr's artwork includes pieces whose estimated values are between $800 and $2,500. At Emerson, Buehr's “Fleecy Clouds” catches the eye of those walking in the hallway, though it's in poor condition, with a hole punched through one cloud.

“He's no Dudley,” said Baumann, who was saddened nonetheless to hear about the damage.

Better care, security needed

In addition to the Buehr damage, paintings by Lucie Hartrath and Eugenie Glaman also have holes the size of half dollars punched in them. Many paintings in the vault are in poor condition, inventories show, although some remain “excellent” and “good.”

School district property control manager Kerry Triplett is blunt about whether the vault's works are in a good state: “Some are; some aren't,” Triplett said, adding that he couldn't release information until the superintendent approved.

It took Steele more than a month to release requested documentation on the art collection. Even then, it was incomplete.

Some of the paint is cracked in works at Emerson, where the Post-Tribune took a tour. The old 1908 building uses boilers for heat. Sometimes rooms get so hot, crayons melt in Sutton's art room. He cringes when he thinks how the school environment might affect the artwork, particularly the oil-on-canvas paintings, because a lot of the old work might not have been on the best materials “because at the time they were struggling artists,” Sutton said.

Since the works aren't covered and are open to the air, Baumann also said grime and dust can settle on them, causing damage. What the environment doesn't squander, people can.

Stories circulate around Emerson about school officials arriving just to lift and remove paintings from the wall in past years, and that district higher-ups have had carte blanche to take artwork without formal log-ins and log-outs.

It should not be that easy, said Baumann, who before becoming an independent conservationist spent 11 years working at the Art Institute of Chicago. He has restored more than 50,000 pieces.

“This seems pretty irresponsible. No. 1, they should have the paintings restored so they can be of teaching use. Second, they should hang them under plexiglass and at a high enough level to keep them from vandals. Also, they should have them cleaned and hung by a professional so that they are secured to the wall,” Baumann said.

“They also need to regulate the humidity level; the temperature is not as important as humidity.

“Imagine what happens to a painting exposed on a wall for 25 years or more. There's dirt, grime, air pollution ... all slowly building up and camouflaging the intended visual and tonal relationships. You must have paintings like that cleaned to return the intended illusion.”

Richard Brauer, former curator for the museum that bears his name at VU, said it is expensive to preserve and protect art: “Schools do not have the funds for that.” He said hanging them is better than keeping the walls bare.

“Not all works need museum-quality preservation. Some art is just for the moment,” Brauer said. But he said art by Dudley and Steele are museum-caliber and deserve preservation.

School Board member Scott said he will encourage student groups to make raising funds and maintaining the art work an educational project. He wants the former Horace Mann High School to morph into a joint gallery and administrative building in the future.

“I'm in favor of doing more, especially with climate control. We could make the art a community asset that all could enjoy. I simply don't know what the financial ramifications would be,” Scott said. “If students took it on as a class project, we wouldn't have to farm everything out.”

The future of art

A sale is apparently not an off-limits topic. Local art enthusiast James Nowacki, a Realtor, said he recently spoke with a Gary School Board member who mentioned a sale might be a possibility.

That School Board member would not confirm her conversation with Nowacki, saying it's confidential because the district may “work with him” in the future.

As Nowacki demands more details about the art, he says the district is becoming hostile. On Friday, while submitting a public information request, he was told to leave the premises by police and threatened with arrest, he said.

Gary has not always kept art data from the public. In 1939, former Superintendent Herbert S. Jones published a “Catalog of Pictures owned by the Gary Public Schools” to increase knowledge and appreciation of the art. It's in the Calumet Archives.

Today's administration hasn't been as forthcoming. Steele did say the district is preparing for another appraisal. Susan Smith Theobald of West Lafayette is one appraiser being sought. Such a contract could hint at rumored sale plans.

Scott, who graduated from Emerson and remembers the art from his school days, said, “I'm not one to say that I would support selling it because that artwork has been there for years for our children. It still has educational value.”

By law, the only way the school district can legally cast off the works is through public auction. Another option would be to put pieces in a gallery. Nowacki says he's spoken with Calumet Township Trustee Mary Elgin about a plan to turn an old Gary post office into a gallery, one where the school maintains ownership.

Sutton said Emerson has a room wired with a security system that would be perfect for a small gallery. Ideally, he'd like to see a state-of-the art facility for the performing arts school with a gallery inside that could be properly curated and open to students as well as the public. He believes the art now owned by the district could even be leveraged as collateral to build such a site.

But with empty classrooms in current high schools and a dwindling population, Gary is restricted from expanding. Of course, it could consolidate and close buildings as it did with elementary schools.

Sutton thinks the art belongs in the schools: “As long as an Emerson alumnus lives, the art has to stay here.”

Teachers like Sutton are disappointed at the prospect that Gary's fine art — which was once so esteemed by Wirt at the turn of the century — would be liquidated.

Sutton said if there is ever a sale, “There would be hell raised.”

School Board member Deborah Morris is against any sale. But she would like to see the art kept in a gallery and professionally maintained, she said.

Hertzlieb has said he'd be willing to offer care and storage to the Gary collection without requiring a transfer of ownership. He believes the paintings are just that valuable.

“The fact that Gary has a collection like this just speaks to the long history in the city of Gary,” he said.

What's in the vault?

But, what about all the possible missing pieces? Scott said he hopes they are just sitting somewhere and were simply left off inventories.

Brauer said it's not uncommon for entities with changing administrations to simply lose track. “Someone might put a painting in a closet and the next administrator simply doesn't know its value. Then, it's moved from place to place by custodians,” Brauer said.

The Gary art collection used to be managed by the now-defunct Gary Schools Art Association, which started in 1925. With the demise of that group, no expert staff has been entrusted with the regular responsibility to look after the works.

It's hard to be sure what premium pieces really remain with the district since the public isn't being given information on their whereabouts or condition.

“I hope they are there,” Sutton said. “You can replace prints. But originals are gone forever.”