The likenesses of 52 Vigo County people influential in politics, education, the arts, entertainment and sports comprise a third artistic mural to be placed in the Vigo County Courthouse.
The finished mural was nearly a year in the making, as Bill Wolfe, well-known Terre Haute sculptor/artist, required numerous hours of research to find photographs or images as well as time to paint the mural between other projects, such as a bronze statue in honor of a fallen Terre Haute Police officer.
The mural project started in 2009 after the Vigo County Board of Commissioners approved the use of the first-floor rotunda at the historic 19th century county courthouse to display four mural oil paintings from Wolfe.
The paintings are paid entirely with private funds. Each mural panel is 10 feet long and 5 feet high.
Perhaps the most unique aspect of Wolfe’s latest mural is the use of paint brushes belonging to D. Omer “Salty” Seamon, a renowned water color artist who died in 1997. Wolfe used the brushes to paint Seamon’s image on the mural.
“One brush still had a price tag on it. It was $70,” Wolfe told the Tribune-Star.
Wolfe is incorporating a bell in each mural. A bell is easy to find in the first two murals. This mural is different, as the bell is actually Dr. Greg Bell, a Terre Haute native who won a gold medal in the long jump in the 1956 Olympics while a sophomore at Indiana University. Bell jumped 25 feet, 8 1/4 inches for the medal. Bell became a dentist in Logansport and director of dentistry at Logansport State Hospital.
Only four of the renderings are in color. It was not something planned, rather Wolfe said if he had a color photograph of a person, he used color in the rendering, such as for Evan Bayh, a Terre Haute native who served three terms as a U.S. senator and two terms as Indiana governor.
Near him, but not in color, is Birch Bayh, his father, also a Terre Haute native, who also served three terms in the U.S. Senate.
The others in color are legendary baseball pitcher Tommy John; Larry Bird, basketball star at Indiana State University, an NBA all-star for the Boston Celtics and former Indiana Pacer’s coach and executive; and Lee A. DuBridge, president of Caltech, who was featured on the 1955 cover of TIME magazine as America’s senior statesman of science.
Some other renderings include Virginia E. Jenckes, the first female U.S. representative from Indiana. Also Daniel Voorhees, who became a U.S. senator and James Whitcomb, who practiced law in Terre Haute and served as Indiana governor in the 1840s and then as a U.S. Senator.
The mural shows three of five Medal of Honor winners, including Civil War recipients Peter J. Ryan and John T. Stearling, as well as Charles Abrell, killed in the Korean War.
There’s also Joe Keaton, a Terre Haute native who owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini, an American stunt performer known for sensational escape acts. Joe Keaton was the father of silent film comedian and director Buster Keaton. There is also silent film star Velesca Suratt; and writer, poet and attorney Max Ehrmann, whose poem “Desiderata” is on the mural. A life-sized bronze statue of Ehrmann, made by Wolfe, was dedicated in 2010 in downtown Terre Haute.
Also in the mural is musician, singer and actor Scatman Crothers and Eugene V. Debs, an advocate of industrial unionism and a five-time presidential candidate. In sports, there’s boxing champion Bud Taylor and John Wooden, who coached at ISU. The mural project includes many famous natives.
Howard Greninger is a writer for the Tribune-Star.
