A Place of His Own: The Life and Art of John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

A Place of His Own: The Life and Art of

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

A Place of His Own: The Life and Art of

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

BLACK ART AUCTION ©2024

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968) John Wesley Hardrick was born to Shephard and Georgia Etta (West) Hardrick in 1891.

His grandfather, Shephard Hardrick, Sr. owned a farm in Kentucky following the Civil War, but in 1871, after racist threats to his family, he moved to Indianapolis. John showed a talent for art as a young boy, and his work was brought to the attention of the owner of a local art store and framer, Herman Lieber. Lieber was highly influential in the business and cultural circles of Indianapolis, and had helped finance two of Indiana’s most important painters of the late 19th century, T.C. Steele and William Forsyth, in acquiring an education at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Munich.

Forsyth later became Hardrick’s teacher and the Munich style of painting was an important characteristic of Hardrick’s own style. Lieber recognized young Hardrick’s natural talent and helped him enroll in children’s classes at the John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis.

As a teenager, he attended Emmerich

Manual Training High School and took classes taught by the important Hoosier Group impressionist painter, Otto Stark. In October of 1910, he began adult sessions at Herron, and studied with another Hoosier Group painter, William Forsyth. The Hoosier Group, as it was known, included five core artists in Indianapolis: Otto Stark, William Forsyth, T.C. Steele, J. Ottis Adams, and R.B. Gruelle. These artists were highly successful on a national level and became known for their scenes of rural Indiana, especially the hilly scenic area south of Indianapolis, Brown County. They were also important teachers of art, because they extended styles and traditions acquired from their European art education to local painters, such as Hardrick. William Forsyth studied primarily in Munich and two characteristics of his work are also seen in the work of Hardrick: the dissection of the landscape with a path or a stream and the cropping of the top of the composition to create a more abstracted perspective with no obvious horizon line.

Photo: Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

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Hardrick worked at the Indianapolis Stove Foundry at night to put himself through Herron. In 1914, at the age of 23, he married Georgia Ann Howard. He also held his first exhibition at the Allen Chapel, in Indianapolis. In the brochure accompanying the exhibit, he wrote:

a prize for soliciting subscriptions. The prize was a $500 Monroe Roadster. He enlisted the help of hair-care magnate, Madame C. J. Walker (Walker lived in Indianapolis and Hardrick had painted her portrait) in selling the car to put the earnings toward furthering his education.

The object of the present exhibition is an attempt to stimulate an interest among the colored citizens of Indianapolis to encourage art; to inspire, if possible, some young talented boy or girl to realize that “Life without labor is crime and labor without art is brutality.” For those of us now making a feeble attempt, we will fall without the support of our race. We need your cooperation, your encouragement in order to successfully explore the field of art. 1

Years later, Hardrick was participating in an art exhibit in Richmond, Indiana, a town on the border of Ohio which had its own successful group of artists. At the time, he was working for the Ver-I-Best Coal Company, and the day of the opening, a load of coal arrived and needed unloaded.

Hardrick drove back from Richmond (a little over an hour away), unloaded the coal, changed, and drove back to Richmond to hang the show.

He shared a studio on Indiana Avenue with Hale Woodruff for some of that year, but increased financial pressures caused him to stop painting and take a job in his family’s trucking business, the Hardrick Hauling Co. Hardrick maintained additional employment throughout his career in order to support his wife and five children. His work ethic, combined with sensible priorities, kept him painting. In 1915, while working for the local newspaper, The Indianapolis Star, he won

In 1917, Hardrick and William Edouard Scott exhibited at the Tenth Annual Exhibition of Works by Indiana Artists at the Herron School . Scott had just returned from an extended trip to France (1909-1914) and had painted closely with Henry Ossawa Tanner at the latter’s summer home near Etaples, in Normandy. This was yet another example of how Hardrick was influenced

by European painting traditions indirectly through other painters he met in Indiana.

1 John Hardrick’s Art Exhibit Catalog, (Indianapolis: Allen Chapel, 1019 Broadway, January 1914), n.p.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

Along with W.E. Scott, another important African American artist who lived in Indianapolis and befriended Hardrick was Hale Aspacio Woodruff. Woodruff, like Hardrick, took classes at Herron with William Forsyth. Lucille Morehouse, an art critic for the Indianapolis Star, reported on April 13, 1924, about a joint exhibition of the work of the two artists occurring at the Pettis Gallery in New York City. Morehouse wrote there were 18 works in all, and Hardrick displayed a mixture of landscapes, portraits, and a large still life of peonies. It was shortly after this exhibit when he was pressured to give up the studio and painting for a couple of years. 2

It currently hangs at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

When Hardrick resumed painting, he and his friend, Woodruff, showed at the Art Institute of Chicago’s exhibition of African-American artists in 1927. That same year he received a $100 honorarium and second-place bronze medal from the Harmon Foundation. One of his paintings, Little Brown Girl, was purchased by a group of supportive Black citizens and donated to the John Herron School of Art for their permanent collection.

He exhibited at the Hoosier Salon in 1929, 1931, and 1934, which was then held in Chicago at Marshall Field and Company.

He also exhibited at the Indianapolis Art Museum, the John Herron School of Art, and the Indianapolis Art Association. He won first prize for a portrait at the Indiana State Fair in 1934, and participated in the American Negro Exposition in Chicago, 1940.

Hardrick’s work continued to receive acclaim in important exhibitions and venues. In 1928, he exhibited at the 2nd Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Negro Art in San Diego. An excerpt from the catalog read: In spite of acute poverty, this young man has the faculty of discerning beauty in everything, being able to face all his adversities with a smile that conceals the feeling within, at the same time he possesses a personality which strangely draws people to him.

2 Morehouse, Lucille E. “Two Young Artists Show Work at Pettis Gallery.” The Indianapolis Sunday Star, 13 Apr. 1924, pp. 4.

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John Hardrick never traveled a path to easy success. He almost always held employment in addition to being a full-time painter, and sometimes had to put his artistic endeavors on hold completely, but by 1929, he owned his own house at 2908 Meredith Ave in Indianapolis. Lucille Morehouse, in another article written for the Indianapolis Star, commented about his neighborhood: This being in a white neighborhood, his children attend the school for white children. His eldest daughter, Rowena, was graduated from school No. 21 (academically) and in celebration of the occasion, Mr Hardrick made a present to the school of a recently painted landscape, The City on the Hill. Miss Anna Reade, the principal of the school, has purchased three of Mr. Hardrick’s landscapes within the year. 3 In the summer of 1931, Hardrick held an exhibition of paintings in the Arthur Jordan Music Hall at the Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the YWCA, 653 North West Street, Indianapolis. The show included landscapes and still life paintings, but featured portraiture. Lucille Morehouse wrote about a late addition to the exhibit—a life size portrait

of the well known Christian minister, Dr. C. H. Winders: Added to the exhibit, the canvas will show Mr. Hardrick’s skill in handling the flesh tones and textures in an example of portraiture of a member of the white race, in contradistinction to the work he has done in the many portraits of the darkerskinned race to which he belongs.4 Morehouse went on to present a very positive review of the overall exhibit, which included portraits of both white and Black subjects, and two paintings of his daughters in an interior.

The Civil Works Administration, a shortlived New Deal program (1933-1934), commissioned him to do a mural at the Crispus Attucks High School in 1934.

This work was ultimately rejected by the principal and never installed because of its depiction of Black foundry workers. School administrators preferred to depict African Americans working in typically white collar professions. Hardrick later said that the intent was to be inspirational by encouraging African American children to work hard and ascend from manual labor.

3 Morehouse, Lucille E. “Pettis Gallery Will Exhibit Work of Local Negro Artist.” The Indianapolis Sunday Star, 23 June 1929, pp. 9.

4 Morehouse, Lucille E. “Oil Paintings of J.W. Hardrick Shown at Wheatley YWCA.” The Indianapolis Sunday Star, 14 June 1931, pp. 12.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

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Hardrick’s health declined by 1941 from Parkinson’s disease. At this time, he was working as a cab driver. He would keep supplies in the trunk of his cab, and while waiting for fares, quickly paint local street scenes; later, he would offer the paintings for sale from the trunk of his cab—sometimes still slightly wet. He applied his paint very thickly, using a palette knife to create a tactile surface. He relied on a brush only to blend or add a shape, and used his thumb to mold the paint as if he were shaping a sculpture. 5 He began painting at the top of the composition and worked down. He was more concerned with the atmosphere and the expression of the landscape than the descriptive qualities, thus following in the tradition of earlier African American landscape painters, such as Edward Mitchell Bannister ( 1828-1901) and Robert Seldon Duncanson (1821-1872). His landscapes were romanticized versions of his memories of his visits to the country. He blended his own paint when possible, producing a very distinctive palette. It could be said that Hardrick and his friend and colleague, Woodruff, approached landscape painting from a modernist perspective, but in both their cases, it was rooted in a disciplined tradition.

This collection of paintings by Hardrick presents the diversity of the subjects in which he engaged: landscapes, portraits, urban scenes, still lifes, and even two unusual works , a western scene and an illustration of Dutch children.

Harriet G. Warkel writes in A Shared Heritage, Art by Four African Americans: Bus in a Snow Storm (fig. 36) depicts a group of people bracing themselves against the cold as they board a bus.

Heavy snow obliterates the landscape, leaving no discernible landmarks.

The artist renders figures using only a few strokes of the brush, and thus concentrates on gestures rather than features. Hardrick contrasts the blowing snow with the warm, yellow light emanating from the interior of the bus, a haven for the traveler on a cold, wintry day. The prominent figure is a black man, separated from the rest of the crowd, battling the blowing snow. He may be the artist’s symbol of the African American’s struggle against a hostile world. Hardrick rarely ventured into the realm of social realist art, but when he did paint in this genre, his statements were subtle not overt. 6 It is remarkable when one looks at the career of John Wesley Hardrick. On the surface, he mirrored the path of the white artists working in his area: he studied at a well-respected institution, he successfully exhibited locally, and to an extent, nationally, and his work was respected throughout the community in general. Hardrick painted the same landscape as his white counterparts, and even developed his own unique style which received critical acclaim. Outside of art, he battled poverty and employment inequality unknown to most of the white painters—but inside the world of art—his world, he stood equal. Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. Afro-

5 Tom Davis, research for the Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis 6 Taylor, William E., et al. “John Hardrick.” A Shared Heritage: Art by Four African Americans, Indianapolis Museum of Art, with Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, IN, 1996, p. 50.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

references American Artists. Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

Childs, Adrienne L, et al. “John Wesley Hardrick.” Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art, David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 2009, p. 52.

Dover, Cedric. American Negro Art. New York Graphic Society, 1960.

Locke, Alain. The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art. Hacker Art Books, 1979.

Morehouse, Lucille E. “Pettis Gallery Will Exhibit Work of Local Negro Artist.” The Indianapolis Sunday Star, 23 June 1929, pp. 9.

Morehouse, Lucille E. “Two Young

Artists Show Work at Pettis Gallery.” The Indianapolis Sunday Star, 13 Apr. 1924, pp.

4.

Morehouse, Lucille E. “Oil Paintings of J.W. Hardrick Shown at Wheatley YWCA.” The Indianapolis Sunday Star, 14 June 1931, pp. 12.

Reynolds, Gary A., et al. Against the Odds: African-American Artists and the Harmon Foundation. Newark Museum, 1989.

Taylor, William E., et al. “John Hardrick.”

A Shared Heritage: Art by Four African Americans, Indianapolis Museum of Art, with Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, IN, 1996, pp. 40–59.

Taylor, William Edward. “John Wesley Hardrick.” St. James Guide to Black Artists, St. James Press, Detroit, MI, 1998, p. 230` – 231.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

Plates

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1. A stream in Winter oil on board 24 x 30 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

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2. Autumn Landscape With a Stream oil on board 24 x 30 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

3. Woodland interior in Autumn oil on board 18 x 22 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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4. A Path through the Landscape oil on board 24 x 30 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

5. Red Houses along a Country Road oil on board 22 x 30 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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6. Peonies in a Blue Vase oil on board 24 x 32 inches signed

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

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7. Early Morning Fishing on Lake Winona oil on board 18 x 23 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

8. Brown County, Indiana Landscape oil on board 12 x 15-1/2 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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9. Brown County, Indiana Landscape oil on board 8 x 10 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

10. autumn stream

oil on board 7-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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11. American Indian Hunting Bison oil on board 34 x 30 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

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12. A Rushing Stream oil on board 20 x 24 inches signed

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

13. Indiana Landscape with Figures oil on board 22 x 28 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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14. Beech Forest Interior in Autumn oil on board 22 x 28 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

15. Beech Forest Interior in Late Summer oil on board 24 x 30 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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16. Bus in a Snowstorm (Indianapolis, IN), c. 1935 oil on board 20 x 24 inches

Illustrated and Exhibited: A Shared Heritage, Art by Four African Americans (Indianapolis Museum of Art), 1996. p. 58 Provenance: Collection of George and Terry Gray, Chicago, IL.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

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17. Autumn Landscape oil on board 16 x 20 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

18. A Woodland Stream oil on board 20 x 24 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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19. Bluebirds oil on board 24 x 10 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

20. Cardinal

oil on board 23 x 10 inches Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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21. Early Autumn Landscape with a Stream oil on board 8 x 10 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

22. Woodland Cabin, Brown County, Indiana, 1921 oil on board 23-1/2 x 18 inches signed and dated

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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23. Early Winter Landscape oil on board 8 x 10 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

24. A winter Stream oil on board 8 x 10 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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25. Portrait of a Woman in a Blue Dress 1946 oil on board 28 x 22 inches signed and dated

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

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26. River Landscape oil on board 28 x 34 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

27. Cabins in Brown County, Indiana oil on board 18 x 22 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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28. A Lakeside Cabin in Early Autumn oil on board 24 x 31 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

29. Autumn Landscape with a Creek oil on board 9 x 12 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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30. Houses along the Whitewater River, Indianapolis

oil on board 18 x 24 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

31. Still Life With Fruit and a vase, 1945 oil on board 16 x 20 inches signed and dated

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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32. Landscape With Stream oil on board 16 x 20 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

33. Peonies

oil on board 15 x 12 inches Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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34. Path through the Indiana Landscape oil on board 10 x 12-1/2 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

35. Dutch Children (story illustration) oil on board 11-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches signed

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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36. A Bend in the Stream oil on board 26 x 34 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

37. A Couple on a Path oil on board 24 x 30 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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38. Peonies in a Gold Vase oil on board 22 x 28 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

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39. Beech Forest in Autumn oil on board 31 x 37 inches

Provenance: Private Collection, Los Angeles, CA

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

40. Stream through an Early Autumn Landscape oil on board 10 x 13 inches

Provenance: The Collection of Rev. Joy L. Thornton, Indianapolis, IN.

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Exhibitions 19151920’s Indiana State Fair 1917

Tenth Annual Exhibition of Works by Indiana Artists, John Herron Art

Institute (IMA), IN.

1924

John Wesley Hardrick and Hale Woodruff, Pettis Gallery, Indianapolis, IN

1927

Negro in Art Week, exhibition of primitive African sculpture, modern paintings, sculpture, drawings, applied art and books, Chicago Woman’s Club, Art Institute of Chicago, IL. Exhibit of Fine Arts by American Negro Artists, Harmon Foundation,

NY, NY (prize) 1928 1929

Exhibit of Fine Arts by American Negro Artists, Harmon Foundation,

NY, NY

John Hardrick (solo), Pettis Gallery, Indianapolis, IN Second Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Negro Art, San Diego.

Exhibit of Fine Arts by American Negro Artists, Harmon Foundation,

NY, NY

Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by American Negro Artists,

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. 1930 1931 1933

Exhibit of Fine Arts by American Negro Artists, Harmon Foundation,

NY, NY

Exhibit of Fine Arts by American Negro Artists, Harmon Foundation,

NY, NY

Exhibit of Fine Arts by American Negro Artists, Harmon Foundation,

NY, NY

Indiana State Exhibition (prize) 1935

Negro Artists. An Illustrated Review of Their Achievements, Harmon

Foundation and Delphic Studios, NY, NY

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John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968)

1940

Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940),

1976

Black Artists in Historical Perspective, Schenectady Museum of Art, NY.

1977

Woodruff, Hardrick, and Scott, Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN.

1992

African American Artists of the Harlem Renaissance Period and Later, Sacks Fine Art, Inc., New York, NY.

1993

African American Artists Then and Now, Sacks Fine Art, Inc., New York.

1994

The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art, San Antonio Museum of Art, TX.

1996

A Shared Heritage: Art by Four African Americans,

1996

Twentieth Century African American Art from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Walker, Gallery 1, University of Arkansas, Little Rock.

2000

The Great Migration: The Evolution of African American Art, 1790-1945, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH.

2004

White Linen Nights - Collectors Series II, Thelma Harris Gallery,

2006

focus: artist collections, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta.

2007

Black Masters, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center,

2009

Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art, David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland,

Tanner Art Galleries, Chicago, IL.

Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN.

Oakland, CA.

Washington DC.

College Park.

2010 The Artist Emerging (Their Early Years), Essie Green Galleries, NY.

2012 Represent: Celebrating Indiana’s African American Artist, Indiana State Museum.

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