INDIANAPOLIS — In the latest release from the Indiana Historical Society (IHS) Press, Painter of the Dunes: A Life of Frank Virgil Dudley, author Rachel Berenson Perry chronicles the creative life of the artist whose fascination with the Indiana Dunes helped establish it as a state park in 1925.
Once his photographer brother introduced him to the sand dunes of Indiana and vicinity in 1911, Frank Virgil Dudley devoted the rest of his creative life to painting landscapes of the area’s stunning scenery and unique diversity, becoming one of the state’s preeminent artists. His well-earned titles of “Seer of the Dunes” and “Painter of the Dunes” allude to his almost obsessive subject matter as well as his activism to save the dunes.
Dudley was transformed by a Dunes Pageant, organized to rally support for the dunes movement and attended by thousands of enthusiasts in the spring of 1917. He began painting the dunes with newfound passion, to the exclusion of all else. Despite the advice of friends in the art world who cautioned him about limited his subject matter, he mounted a one-man exhibition of dunes paintings and also joined the Prairie Club, part of the dunes conservation movement, in 1918.
The artist’s professional credentials included more than 20 fine-art prizes and inclusion in scores of exhibitions, many of them solo shows.
The book is available through IHS’s Basile History Market and other places books are sold. For more information about the book or the IHS Press, call (317) 232-1882 or visit www.indianahistory.org.
