Spring Splendor in Indianapolis

If it’s Saturday, it must be Indy. Indianapolis, that is, and I was indeed there two Saturdays ago for a gratifying visit to Newfields, the home of stately formal gardens and greenhouses and the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). I haven’t been there since 2021 when racism charges, the Black Lives Matter mass hysteria, and incompetent trusteeship battered the state’s premier art museum. After a faction of the trustees demanded that black leaders run the place and then got a revolving door of unsatisfactory administrators, Newfields now seems settled and more than functional. I enjoyed nearly a full day at the museum. There was so much to see and do that I could have had a second day. The place looks great.

Excitement was in the air for the opening of the IMA’s annual Art in Bloom extravaganza for which local and regional florists and flower designers, most professional, some hobbyists, make floral sculptures complementing works in the museum’s collection. The arrangements are art, too, and often the pairings are splendid. Talk about flower power. Of course, crowds come, with lots of people new to the museum and lots of families. It’s fun to be part of it. Art in Bloom is a national phenomenon — art museums either embrace it or reject it as middle-class crap and repellent. I did it once and thought it was great, though I initially feared the snake-pit politics of garden clubs.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

If it’s Saturday, it must be Indy. Indianapolis, that is, and I was indeed there two Saturdays ago for a gratifying visit to Newfields, the home of stately formal gardens and greenhouses and the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). I haven’t been there since 2021 when racism charges, the Black Lives Matter mass hysteria, and incompetent trusteeship battered the state’s premier art museum. After a faction of the trustees demanded that black leaders run the place and then got a revolving door of unsatisfactory administrators, Newfields now seems settled and more than functional. I enjoyed nearly a full day at the museum. There was so much to see and do that I could have had a second day. The place looks great.

Excitement was in the air for the opening of the IMA’s annual Art in Bloom extravaganza for which local and regional florists and flower designers, most professional, some hobbyists, make floral sculptures complementing works in the museum’s collection. The arrangements are art, too, and often the pairings are splendid. Talk about flower power. Of course, crowds come, with lots of people new to the museum and lots of families. It’s fun to be part of it. Art in Bloom is a national phenomenon — art museums either embrace it or reject it as middle-class crap and repellent. I did it once and thought it was great, though I initially feared the snake-pit politics of garden clubs.