John Wesley Hardrick (September 21,1891-October 18, 1968)

John Hardrick"s grandfather moved to Indianapolis around 1880 to escape the racism around his rural Kentucky farm. By 1888, John's father, Shepard Hardrick, had married Georgia Etta West and settled on South Prospect Street, where John was born in 1891.

John showed a natural talent in art very early on, drawing by the age of 6, doing watercolors at 8, and exhibiting some of his work at the age of 13 at a Negro Business League Convention here in town. One of his teachers at Harriet Beecher Stowe School was so impressed with his work that she showed it to local arts patron Herman Lieber, owner of an art supply store, who saw to it that John attended children's art classes at the John Herron School of Art.

While attending Emmerich Manual Training High School, he was a student of Otto Stark, and in 1910, he began attending regular classes at Herron, where he studied under William Forsyth. But financial pressures meant that John had to work nights at the Indianapolis Stove Foundry in order to put himself through Herron.

1914 was a big year for Hardrick. He married Georgia Ann Howard and held his first exhibition, selling some of his paintings for as much as $200. However, he continued to work in the foundry in order to support his wife and growing family of three daughters. For awhile, he had a studio at 541 1/2 Indiana Avenue with fellow artist Hale Woodruff, but increased financial pressures forced him to spend less time on art and he quit the foundry job to go to work in the family trucking business.

One critic thought this actually improved the quality of his work, giving him "time to grow and develop unconsciously." He continued to exhibit, and several of his works were shown at an Art Institute of Chicago exhibit in 1927. Local leaders in the community tried unsuccessfully to secure a major grant for him through this exhibit, but Hardrick received only a small second prize and a special presentation from Indianapolis Mayor L. Ert Slack.

He continued to receive community support. A group of black organizations raised funds and purchased one of his paintings, "Little Brown Girl," which was given to the Herron Art Institute for its permanent collection. The Allen Chapel of the AME Church commissioned him to paint a large painting of Christ and the Samaritan Woman in 1928. Four of his paintings were selected for the 2nd Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Negro Art in San Diego, and its 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."

He also participated in the 1929, 1931, and 1934 Hoosier Salons at Marshall Field and Company in Chicago, as well as other shows. But the degree of his poverty is revealed by the fact that once, because he could not afford to pay the $4.47 delivery charge when a painting was mistakenly returned to him COD, the painting was sold by the storage company. The Civil Works Administration commissioned him to do a mural for Crispus Attacks High School in 1934, but it was rejected because the subject was black foundry workers and not the scenes of doctors and lawyers the principal had hoped for.

As his own health began to decline, and his wife Georgia died in 1941, John left the family trucking business and moved with his three daughters back into the old family home at 3309 South Prospect. Some friends allowed him to set up a studio in their basement, but as a cab driver he often set up his easel downtown and quickly painted street scenes while waiting for fares, selling the work as quickly as it was finished, or offering other paintings from the trunk of his cab. He continued to paint until he developed Parkinsons disease late in his life, acquiring a measure of national recognition if not financial security by the time of his death on October 18, 1968.