Over 20 years ago, members of the Irvington Historical
Society visited the soon to be demolished Indianapolis City
Hospital, then called Wishard. During the tour they were
given a series of wet rolled up canvases which were lying
on the floor waiting to be discarded. These were once the
murals painted by Irvington Artist Dorothy Morlan in the
Women’s Medical Ward and Sunroom.
The Irvington Historical Society stored these canvas rolls
until 2019, when grants from the Indiana Historical Society,
the Owings Family Foundation and funding from the Irvington
Community Council, allowed the Society to begin restoring
its Dorothy Morlan collection and exploring
if these murals could be saved.
Art Conservator Natalia Nikolayev care-
fully unrolled and weighted each tight roll to
find six canvas strips forming two murals. The
mural displayed here includes Morlan’s
signature as well as the date. The plan is to
clean, mount each piece on a backer board
which will allow us to rehang these "lost"
murals.. The estimated cost of this process is
estimated to be $12,000. Please help.
Fragments of the second mural can be seen
on the second-floor mezzanine.
A section of the second Morlan Murals.
One of four sections of the first Morlan Mural.
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Copyright 2018. Irvington Historical Society / Bona Thompson Center. All rights reserved.