Museum curator talks history of local artists

The Venue Fine Art & Gifts slowly filled with artists and art appreciators Tuesday night for a presentation by author Rachel Berenson Perry.

Attendees enjoyed refreshments and chatted about Perry and her book as seating to accommodate the large group became scarce.

“The most we’ve had stuffed into that room was 55,” Venue owner Gabe
Colman said.

Perry is the former fine arts curator of the Indiana State Museum and is considered the foremost expert on Indiana art, especially art originating in Brown County.

Perry was at the Venue speaking about T.C. Steele and other artists who made up the Hoosier Group.

“T.C. Steele was an early artist in Indiana, and is probably the best-known artist in Indiana, who came to Brown County in 1907,” Perry said. “The group, who included William Forsythe, John Ottis Adams, Richard Greulle and Otto Stark, pioneered the ‘Plein Air’ style of painting in America.”

Perry said IU’s campus was a subject of many of Steele’s paintings because he was an artist in residence from 1922 to 1926. His studio was located in Franklin Hall, she said.

Perry has already authored “T.C Steele and the Society of Western Artists, 1896-1914,” which won a silver medal in the Fine Art category in the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Her latest book, “Paint on Canvas: A Biography of T.C. Steele,” was the subject of Tuesday’s presentation and book signing.

A projector was set up in one of the four small rooms at the Venue, and eventually, almost everyone found a seat in the room — others watched intently from the two
doorways.

Paintings were splashed across a blank wall as Perry introduced them and encouraged discussion about the artist and the history.

It was a constant Q-and-A format as Perry fielded questions.

One audience member asked how the artists maintained their supplies of paints, brushes and canvases in what was a relatively remote Brown County in the 1900s.

“They really lived in Brown County seasonally and wintered in Indianapolis until after 1922,” Perry said.

Janet Barnes, an art teacher at Rogers Elementary School, said she enjoyed hearing Perry’s answers.

“It’s always fun to learn how they were real people sort of hanging out doing their thing,” she said. “It makes them very real.”

Perry is working on another book. She is also considering writing a memoir.

She said she would have no trouble filling a memoir, with experience as curator for Indiana State Museum and  a work history that includes driving a cab and shoeing horses for nearly 12 years.

“I was very pleased with the number of people who showed up,” Perry said as she continued signing books after her presentation.