Missing painting found in Indiana State Museum

GARY – A painting discovered at an Indianapolis museum is among scores of art works once owned by the city of Gary and its schools that have disappeared, including some by Monet and Rembrandt, officials say.\nA resident who has worked for years trying to find out what happened to the lost art said he hopes the recovery of “Landing the Fish Boat” by Frank V. Dudley helps solve the mystery.\nThe painting was donated to the city in 1957 shortly after Dudley’s death, according to a newspaper photograph published that year. But the city no longer has the painting.\nThe Indiana State Museum exhibited a painting by Dudley at a Valparaiso University gallery last year that appears to be the same work, prompting questions about how it was transferred through the years.\n“It’s definitely the same painting,” said Rachel Perry, the Indiana State Museum’s fine arts curator. \nGary resident Jim Nowacki said a 1948 inventory of art owned by the Gary schools lists works by painters such as Cézanne, Monet and Rembrandt. None of them are owned by the schools today.\nNowacki, who has spent many hours trying to recover the lost art, said he hopes “Landing the Fish Boat” will become his first success and increase interest in pursuing other paintings that could be displayed in the city and used as a teaching aid in city art classes.\nPerry could not say how the Dudley left the school’s possession. Appraisal paperwork maintained by the museum shows that, sometime after it was donated to the city, the Dudley painting came to be owned by a Hammond man. He gave it to his son in Gary around 1975.\n“I’ve always wanted the painting to be in a museum so that more people can appreciate the early days of Gary and the dunes,” a letter from the donor to the museum states.\nIt would not have been uncommon for public school officials to store paintings at home during summer break or to take the art in their offices upon retirement, Perry noted.\n“The paintings would just kind of walk off,” she said.