Artists from Columbus and Nashville, Indiana will have their work on display when the 102nd annual Hoosier Art Salon opens next week at the Indiana State Museum. Judges selected 123 artists from a pool of 284 applicants, choosing 137 paintings, drawings, sculptures, glass creations and other pieces out of 528 original artworks submitted for consideration.
The exhibition opens Friday, August 21, at the Indiana State Museum, according to The Republic. Columbus is represented by artist Mary M. Gretsinger, while Nashville, Indiana sends a contingent that includes James Tracy, Terri Schultz, Tamar Kander, Allen Hutton and Thom Robinson. Selected artists hail from 38 Indiana counties, along with five other states and New Zealand, and the show includes 17 first-time participants alongside eight former Best of Show winners.
A Century-Old Tradition Rooted in Brown County
The Nashville artists' presence traces back to a much older story. Impressionist painter T. C. Steele moved to Brown County in 1907 and built his home and studio there, sparking the creation of the Brown County Art Colony that drew dozens of artists to the small town, according to the Indiana Historical Bureau. That legacy is preserved today at the T.C. Steele State Historic Site, a 211-acre property near Nashville that includes Steele's 1907 “House of the Singing Winds” home and his Large Studio, per the Friends of T.C. Steele. The site is operated as part of the same Indiana State Museum system now hosting the Salon.
The Salon itself has an even longer and more circuitous history. It began in 1925 when the Daughters of Indiana, a group of Indiana-born women living in Chicago, opened the first exhibition at the Marshall Field & Company department store there, featuring 253 works by contemporary Indiana artists, per The Republic's account of the exhibition's origins as documented on Wikipedia. The show moved to downtown Indianapolis in 1942 and cycled through venues including L.S. Ayres and William H. Block Company department stores before landing at the Indiana State Museum for the first time in 1990. It briefly relocated to the Indiana Historical Society in 2011 before returning permanently to the museum in 2016.
Prizes, Sales and Returning Champions
This year's exhibition will award $58,000 in monetary prizes, with the Best of Show winner receiving $6,000. Last year's top honor went to artist Carol Strock-Wasson for her oil painting Blue Gray Winter Light, and the 2025 Salon generated more than $79,000 in sales for participating artists, according to The Republic. All artworks in the current exhibition are for sale, and the show is sponsored by a roster of organizations including the Bowen Engineering Endowment, Lake City Bank, the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Flanner Buchanan, the Efroymson Family Foundation, the Indy Arts Council, Tri Kappa and Psi Iota Xi.
Artists qualify for entry by being current Indiana residents or by having lived in the state for at least one year at some point. Museum staff involved in this year's show emphasized the range of work on view. Paula Katz said the exhibition will deliver a distinctive experience with a variety of participating artists, while Brandon Emkes said three independent jurors produced a diverse and engaging exhibition, per The Republic's reporting.
Admission and Visitor Details
Admission to the Indiana State Museum runs $23 for adults, $21 for seniors and $17 for youth ages 3 to 17, with free admission for museum members. Full ticketing and visitor information is available at indianamuseum.org.
An Art Economy Beyond the Gallery Walls
The Salon's return also lands within a broader statewide push to bolster Indiana's creative economy. The visual arts and creative industry adds nearly $8.7 billion annually to Indiana's economy, according to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis figures cited by the Indiana Arts Commission. That backdrop includes the newly launched READI 2.0 Arts & Culture Initiative, a $65 million Lilly Endowment-funded grant program for community and regional art projects across the state, as reported by Greater Lafayette Region. A 2023 study by Americans for the Arts found that attendees at local Indiana cultural events spend nearly $40 per person on dining and retail beyond ticket admission, according to Public News Service, underscoring the ripple effect an exhibition like the Hoosier Art Salon can have well beyond the museum's walls.
Beyond its annual flagship show, the nonprofit Hoosier Salon Patrons Association also maintains a year-round fine art gallery in historic New Harmony, Indiana, where artists receive 60% of all artwork sale revenues, according to Wikipedia. For Columbus and Nashville's artists, the 102nd Salon offers another chance to place their work in front of statewide collectors while extending a tradition that stretches back a full century, from a Chicago department store to the halls of the Indiana State Museum.
