Evening star., 1926-04-04
"HOOP-HOLE RIDGE"
| FAMED IN INDIANA
Area Near Nashville Is
/ Studio Place for Noted
r Men and Women.
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
NASHVILLE, Ind, April 3-On
IIoop-Hole Ridge and its tributary
hills, near the hamlet of Nashville,
Ind, perch the cabin studios of q
score of men and women who have
: brought international fame to Indiana
and the Middle West.
More and more frequently canVases
are being hung in art exhibits pfctur-
ing the quiet countryside and the vir.
gin woods of Brown County, Ind. and
portraying the quaint hill folk of this
zone unspoiled spot of the Middle
West"
When Adolph r. Shulz returned
from Europe in the early years of the
century, he was filed with inspira-
tion derived from studying French
peasant types, and eager to put on
canvas his impressions of the CORE
spending American tiller of the soil.
Change Is Disappointing.
To his great disappointment, he
found the pioneer type of farmer had
given way to the agriCulturiSt who
worked with machinery and sent his
children to town Tor schooling. 1t
was not until 1907, when he went on
a walking tour of the rural districts
OF Indiana. that he found the back
NbDuS ol ibIDMl NOullN ana lllS S-iil-
pie hill folk he later helped to immor-
taliZe with his brush. He settled here.
Another Indiana artist, however,
already had discovered" the beauti-
ful valleys and rolling hills near Nash
Vile, and when ShulZ and his artist
wife, Ada Walter ShulZ. returned in
1908 to erect n studio they found The
odore q. Steele, 1.-The grand old man
Of Indiana painting" already installed
in his "House of the Singing Winds. "
Around the Shulzes and the Steeles
have sprung up the work homes OF
artists, until today the Nashville col
only is the largest of its kind in the
Middle West.
Meeting House Now a Studio.
The old log meeting house of a de-
Sunct church near the hamlet is now
the studio of Marie Goth, the portrait
hainter, whose canvas Of Charles
Dahlsreen, another noted figure in
the colony, won the first prize for por-
traits at the second Indiana salon in
Chicago.
VIII Nawter, friend of James Whit
comb Riley and illustrator of his
books of poems. occupies another
cabin. Carl Graf, l.. O. Griffith, LuCie
1Iartrath, Ronal Batten, George Mock,
Frederick Policy, Doel Reed. Paul
Sargent. Reynolds Selfridge, Beatrice
StOddard. r Vance Nelson and Roy
Trobaugh, all of whom are we'll known
in the galleries and museums of the
country, either have studios there or
spend a part Of each year at the col
Ony painting.
Selfridge is the only member of the
group who was born in Brown County.
Dale u. BeSsire. who is an orchard
ist in two senses of the word. being a
fruit farmer as we'll as a successful
painter of trees. also lives near Nash
vile. When the news spread that he
was resuming his art after becoming
known to his neighbors as a farmer,
one of the natives exclaimed:
Dale CANT be no artist. He amt
lazy enough"
The Society of Indiana Artists has
under consideration a plan to make
available to larger number of young
painters the inspiring atmosphere of
the colony and the scenic beauty of
the Indiana hills by taking over one
of the numerous abandoned farms in
the vicinity and erecting a number of
studio ShackS TO accommodate visit
ing painters.
4 day is coming when the old types
in the district Will be no more. for
with discovery" of the place by the
railroad. The country folk are TAX
ing up the ways of modern life
which. however desirable from an
economic viewpoint, is not conducive
TO preservation of the picturesque.