Sue Slick, Collection Information Specialist
The artwork of celebrated Hoosier painters is scattered around the state of Indiana in some surprising places. Dozens of T. C. Steele paintings belong to Indiana University, Bloomington, where Steele was artist-in-residence in the 1920s. They hang, not in the university museum, but in the hallowed halls of the campus administration and academic buildings. The Eckhart Public Library in Auburn has a collection of wonderful Hoosier paintings including a couple of Leota Loop’s luscious floral still lifes, probably painted in her Brown County studio where she taught painting classes. Around Fort Wayne, Homer Davisson’s paintings often appear in family collections, not surprising as Davisson was a prolific painter and spent many years in this city while teaching at the Fort Wayne Art School.
What is more surprising is that the Indianapolis Public School system has quite a large collection of fine art that was displayed throughout its school facilities for decades. Many of these paintings were given to the schools by the artists themselves. Among them are paintings by Hoosier Group artists, William Forsyth, J.O. Adams and Otto Stark. This bounty of art became a worry a few years ago when it became clear that the school system didn’t have the means or expertise to continue to care for its large collection, much of which had been placed in storage as school buildings were emptied and closed. Some of the pieces were showing signs of deterioration after years spent in school environments.
A solution to better steward this treasure trove of art was brilliantly devised by the IPS with help from the Eli Lilly Company and the Indiana State Museum & Historic Sites. The solution was to cull the collection, set aside a portion of the historic Indiana works, carefully assess their conditions and importance and then find them new homes in public institutions around the state where they could be cared for and enjoyed by all. The Eli Lilly Endowment funded the project with a $1.65 million grant that transferred ownership of the works to the Indiana State Museum. The ISM was assigned the role of managing the project; the funds paid to purchase the art from the Indianapolis Public Schools were allocated for art education programs. The Lilly grant has also promised funds for professional conservation of the art as needed. The 148 works were first offered to Indiana institutions with American Alliance of Museums accreditation, including the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. We were among the first-tier group invited to peruse the listed works of art and to request our favorites for our own collections.
In mid-February, FWMoA’s CEO, Charles Shepard, gathered the curatorial and executive teams together to hash out our top choices, build our arguments for those choices and to quickly complete our application for the selection panel. After several meetings over a couple of weeks and many conversations we came up with a list of about 40 favorites – not an easy task as the offered gift also work by T.C. Steele, Marie Goth, Garo Antressian, Elmer Taflinger and so many others we would have loved having. We then ranked our list by considering representation of the artists in our collection, connection to our institution and community and our ability to display, store and share them with our visitors in ways that fulfill our mission. We were generously awarded 14 works from our list.
Our first choice, September, is a breathtaking oil on canvas by American Painter, Robert Reid, 1862-1929. Reid was not a Hoosier but had ties to Indianapolis via Pulitzer Prize winning author and playwright, Booth Tarkington, an avid art collector and native Hoosier. At one point, September belonged to the Tarkington family.
September is a large painting that portrays a graceful young woman with flowing auburn hair that matches her rust-colored robe. A vine with reddish flowers passes through her fingers and wraps around her shoulders blending into the loosely painted landscape behind her. When we saw the image of September, we knew we would be proud to exhibit this gorgeous painting, considering the value and rarity of the painting, and knowing our guests would love it based on the popularity of the Robert Reid painting already in our permanent collection.
Museum goers who know our painting collection may have seen our first Robert Reid painting, Defiant Autumn, given to the museum by the John Herron Art Institute in 1958. The painting portrays a young woman swathed in crimson foliage and flowers pensively gazing at the viewer from her lofty placement on the canvas. Loosely painted in an autumnal palette of mauve and violet over a creamy background, it is representative of Reid’s portrayal of young womanhood in nature, the draftsmanship of the figure and face rendered expertly and exuberantly in Impressionistic color and brushwork.
Reid painted many images of young women and flowers, several like Defiant Autumn in which the sitter is so immersed in flowers, foliage and atmosphere, that she seems to be one with nature. We are thrilled and honored to be able to give a home to another equally lovely Reid painting.
Our new Reid painting, September, is beguiling and enigmatic. We know from its inscription that it belonged to Booth Tarkington and one of his wives. In the lower right corner on the painting it reads: To Mr. and Mrs. Booth Tarkington – Robert Reid. A small metal plate fixed to the frame reads: September, Gift of Mrs. Booth Tarkington. It is known that Reid made several renderings of the members of the Tarkington family. It seems the most logical conclusion given the personal inscription on the painting’s face that this painting is depicting one of the Mrs. Tarkingtons; perhaps Laurel, pictured below.
Tarkington’s first wife, poet, Laurel Louisa Fletcher, 1878-1957, was the daughter of the banking Fletchers of Indianapolis. She was married to Tarkington from 1902 to 1911. Tarkington married Susanah Keifer in 1912. She is said to have been a very capable manager of the Tarkington homes and assets, and a positive influence on Tarkington. She is credited with standing by him through some of his best writing years. Susanah outlived Tarkington by two decades and distributed much of his large art collection following his death in 1946, possibly explaining the plate on September’s frame. Robert Reid made a sketch of Susanah in 1914.
Among Robert Reid’s models was his wife of nine years, Elizabeth Reeves Reid, who is identified as the subject of several of his paintings, including The Portrait Sketch, Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, The White Parasol and The Yellow Flower (The Artist’s Wife in the Garden).
Married in 1907, The Washington Post reported that the couple married somewhat secretly in Massachusetts to avoid New York publicity as, “Robert Reid is a well-known New York artist and clubman . . . Miss Reeves was his model”. Reid was 44, Elizabeth, 20. They had twin sons, Robert and Edwin, but Elizabeth left Reid in about 1915. The divorce and custody of their 5-year-old boys was granted Elizabeth in 1916. She attributed the failure of their marriage to his compulsion to work too much.
In 1918, arts critic, Evelyn Marie Stuart, wrote for Fine Arts Journal,
“The name of Robert Reid is one of the most widely known in American art. No painter of modern times is more renowned as the beau ideal of the cosmopolitan artistic type respected in the studios for his discernment and ability, welcomed in drawing rooms for his grace and wit and charm of manner.”
Reid was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts into a line of clergymen. He studied at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Students League, New York and L’Académie Julian, Paris. At the time of his death in 1929, Reid’s work was in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Corcoran Art Gallery and the National Gallery, Washington D.C. He was said to have completed more than 180 paintings in his career.
Reid was described in a 1911 article in Arts & Decoration magazine as “picturesque of appearance, eager, optimistic and exceptionally gifted”. He had made a name for himself as a muralist at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His murals also adorned the Library of Congress, Washington, the Boston Public Library, state houses, court houses and private residences. Reid’s easel paintings were also rapidly winning awards and accolades. In fact, four of Reid’s paintings were shown at the Chicago World’s Fair Fine Arts Building at the same time his three murals adorned one of the domes of the fair’s enormous Liberal Arts Building.
Memorial Church, Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Image courtesy of Terry Letton.
Not one to idly bask in the glow of his success, in 1901, Reid undertook the creation of several large stained glass panels for the Rogers Memorial Church (Memorial Unitarian Church), Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The stunning painterly figures in Reid’s stained glass clearly recall Reid’s figures beautifully executed on canvas. This large commission took two years to complete as Reid produced each of the church’s nine large clerestory windows. Unlike his murals, many of which have been lost to time and the replacement of buildings, these stained glass works may still be seen today in a thriving place of worship.
Reid has been labeled both a Decorative Impressionist and an Academic Impressionist. His work has been described as ethereal, florid, sentimental, energetic and pretty. Some theorize that his easel painting style was heavily influenced by his decades of mural work. His classical training in Paris also informs his particular Impressionistic style in his portrayals of femininity in nature. Reid was the youngest member of the Ten American Painters, which formed in 1897 as a collective rejection of the principles of the Society of American Artists that had lowered its membership standards, according to The Ten’s founders, Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, and John Twachtman. The scandalous split from the SSA also allowed The Ten to manage its own annual exhibitions in a more refined and exclusive manner than was the SAA’s tradition. Other members of the group were Frank Benson, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Joseph De Camp, Edmund Tarbell, Willard Metcalf, William Merritt Chase, Edward Simmons, and Robert Reid. Chase was invited to join the group after Twachtman’s death in 1902.
Also well-known were Reid’s clubbing and gambling habits resulting in a history of overextension of finances – apparently traits shared with some of his colleagues. And while the art critics of the day seemed to adore Reid, lavishing praise on his work and character, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art describes Reid as vain and self-indulgent. He and other members of The Ten were also closely associated with one of the Gilded Age’s most notorious New Yorkers, scandal-prone architect, Stanford White. Though White was surely influential in helping Reid and his colleagues secure mural and stained-glass commissions during the surge of grand building projects of the age. Sadly, at 64, Reid became disabled after suffering a stroke. His right side paralyzed, Reid trained himself to paint with his left hand. He spent the last few years of his life in a sanitorium in New York where he died of pneumonia after a serious fall; he was 67. Elizabeth died in San Diego, California in 1976 at 89.
Robert Reid was prolific, hard-working and complicated. Regardless, he left the world with a bounty of beautiful art created in his own unique form of American Impressionism. We have enjoyed his Defiant Autumn since 1958, and now we are so looking forward to introducing all of you to his enchanting, September!
Look for future posts on the continuing story of the Indianapolis Public Schools’ fabulous gift of art!
References
American Painting, Muskegon Museum of Art, 1980.
Artist: Robert Reid: born Stockbridge, MA 1862-died Clifton Springs, NY 1929, SAAM, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/robert-reid-3989
Brigham, David R., American Impressionism: paintings of promise, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1997.
Brinton, Christian, Robert Reid: Decorative Impressionist, Arts and Decoration, November, 1911.
DeLay, Chelsea, Artist Biography: Robert Reid (1862-1929), Quest Royal Fine Art, https://www.questroyalfineart.com/artist/robert-lewis-reid/
Gerdts, William H., American Impressionism, The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, 1980.
Hiesinger, Ulrich W., Impressionism in America: the Ten American Painters, Prestel, New York, 1991. https://archive.org/details/impressionismina0000hies/page/252/mode/2up
Hoopes, Donelson, The American Impressionists, Watson-Gupthill Publications, New York, 1972.
IPS Art Preservation Project: A Vision for Stewardship & Arts Enrichment, October 2025, myIPS, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://go.boarddocs.com/in/indps/Board.nsf/files/DMVU8U7A6E4F/$file/IPS%20Art%20Preservation%20Project%20–%20October%202025.pdf
Laurel Louisa Fletcher Connely, Find A Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/122628572/laurel_louisa-connely
Reids are Divorced, Mount Vernon Argus, White Plains New York, November 15, 1916.
Robert Reid, Noted Artist, Dies at Clifton Springs, The Springfield Daily Republican, Springfield, Massachusetts, December 3, 1929.
Robert Reid was married to Miss Elizabeth Reeves, The Washington Post, May 1, 1907.
Robert Reid Weds Model, The Standard-Times, April 30, 1907.
Robert Lewis Reid, Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70450395/robert-lewis-reid
Ten American painters: the first exhibition, catalogue of the pictures, 1898, Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, 1898. https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/ten-american-painters-first-exhibition-catalogue-pictures-14281
Stuart, Evelyn Marie, Finished Impressions of a Portrait Painter, Fine Arts Journal, January, 1918, pp. 33-40.
Susanah S. Keifer Tarkington, Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31436688/susanah_s-tarkington
Vance Jordan Fine Art Inc., American Paintings: 1860-1940, Vance Jordan Fine Art Inc., New York, 2002.
WSC Stay Connected: Worcester Art Museum presents “The Ten: American Painters of the Gilded Age“, Worcester Art Museum, 2020. https://archive.org/details/worma-WSC_Stay_Connected_-_Worcester_Art_Museum_presents_The_Ten_-_American_Painters_of_the_Guil