IRVINGTON — The Irvington Historical Society will be honored by the Indiana Historical Society at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 10. They will be presenting their Outstanding Historical Organization Award for 2023 to the Irvington Historical Society for their remarkable service to the community and demonstrated excellence in the application of professional standards and best practices. This year’s co-recipient is the EvansvilleWartime Museum.
Founded in 1964, The Irvington Historical Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Irvington’s heritage, history, culture and fine art. In 1999, the Society was able to raise over a million dollars to save the historic Bona Thompson Center from the wrecking ball. The building, located at 5350 University, is the last remaining building from Butler University’s Irvington campus. Today, the 1903 Neo-Classical Bona Thompson Center serves as the organization’s headquarters, public museum and archives celebrating Irvington’s 150 year history.
The second event on December 10 will be the first public unveiling of the “lost” Dorothy Morlan murals. These murals were a part of a major project in 1914 led by the well-known Hoosier artist, William Forsyth. The goal was to brighten up the new Burdsal wards in City (later Wishard) Hospital. Forsyth and Clifton Wheeler gathered together 16 of Indiana’s “finest and most promising” artists, including Dorothy Morlan, Simon Baus, Constance Forsyth, and Frederick Polley to brighten up the walls of the wards. Each artist selected the subject matter of their mural. Forsyth, as general supervisor, selected a muted color palette which was used by all of the artists. The murals featured landscapes, portraits, Biblical scenes, and images from children’s fairytales, which were mounted on the upper half of the walls to make them visible to hospital patients lying in bed. When the City Hospital project opened to the public on November 28, 1914, it featured a quarter mile of artwork, or 33 murals in many subdivided parts. They were created by 16 Indiana artists and was the first and only public hospital in the world to feature artwork of this type and scale. The Indianapolis News called the project the “first great milestone in Indiana art.”
By the 1980s, many of the murals had been painted over, cut to make doorways, removed, or just lost. As plans moved forward to tear down Wishard Hospital, to be replaced by a modern facility, the murals painted by T.C. Steele, William Forsyth and Clifton Wheeler were carefully removed, restored and protected in museums. The others were cut off the walls and discarded. The Morlan murals are included in several reference books as being among these “Lost” murals.
Thanks to a couple of members of the Irvington Historical Society, an armload of wet canvas rolls from the Morlan murals were saved from destruction. It has taken over thirty years and over $50,000 in grants from organizations including the Efroymson Family Foundation and the Indiana Historical Society to restore the murals. They have now been unrolled, stabilized, stretched and framed. On December 10th, these “lost” Dorothy Morlan murals will join the works of the rest of the Irvington Group artists on display in the Bona Thompson Center.
