Dedication of "Save The Children," a sculpture by Paxton Cooper, in front of the Bancroft-Kent Center, now the Wayman Palmer YMCA. Vice President Walter Mondale, U.S. Representative Ludlow Ashley and Toledo Mayor Doug DeGood, October 25, 1979. Where does the art begin, and the politics end? Photo @ Penny Gentieu
The Bancroft-Kent Center was a public-private urban renewal project that was built in 1978 in the Warren-Sherman neighborhood, near downtown Toledo. I was Toledo’s “city photographer” at the time, and I took these photos. I came across them recently while scanning my archive of negatives. Having totally forgotten what it was I had photographed, I managed to piece the story together, one that resonates today.
This was the ground-breaking ceremony for the Bancroft-Kent Center on October 31, 1978: community development director, Wayman Palmer on the left, Toledo city council members Sandy Isenberg in the center and Bill Copeland, second to the right.
My boss was Ted Reams, the city public information director, standing on the podium smoking a pipe as the city officials announce the project at the groundbreaking in 1978. Downtown Toledo is in the background.
They built the building in the middle of a residential side street, North 14th Street. The dilapidated houses on the opposite side of the street were ready to be torn down.
The next year, I was free-lancing, and Toledo Trust hired me to cover an event, with the Vice President, Walter Mondale, coming in to help commemorate. It was the dedication of the sculpture, Save The Children in front of the new Bancroft-Kent Center.
Members of the community gathered in front of the Bancroft-Kent Center at 2053 North 14th Street for the dedication of Save The Children.That’s me on the right, taking these photos, captured in the Blade.Dedication of Save The Children by Paxton Cooper, installation at Bancroft-Kent Center, which is now the Wayman Palmer YMCA. Vice President Walter Mondale is approaching the microphone.From left to right: Wayman Palmer at the microphone, Vice President Walter Mondale, U.S. Representative Ludlow Ashley and Toledo Mayor Doug DeGood, two secret service agents, among the people in the back are the judges of Save The Children, I realized, with Save The Children in between.That could be the artist, Paxton Cooper waving from behind Save The Children, whom Wayman Palmer is pointing out. Sitting just beyond Wayman Palmer is William Norris, CEO of Control Data Corporation, who saw business opportunities in social responsibility. (CDC had just won a many-million-dollar settlement from their anti-trust lawsuit against IBM.)
The judges of Save The Children lined up behind it are Robert Page, Project Architect, Samborn, Steketee, Otis & Evans (SSOE); Susan Reams, founder of the “1% For Art” program and Chairman of the Design Review Board; Roger Mandle, Director, Toledo Museum of Art; and who I believe are Richard Boers, Commissioner, Forestry & Open Space Planning, and Prudence Hicks, Representative of Warren-Sherman neighborhood. The Scott High School choir is in the background.
The Blade article on it:
The Bancroft-Kent Center was renamed the Wayman D. Palmer Community YMCA after Wayman Palmer died in 1984. A beloved community leader, see his obituary here: Palmer Wayman Toledo Blade Nov 12 1984.
Wayman D. Palmer YMCA Today
Photographed in December 2021, the front of the building faces the side street, North 14th Street, with the parking lot having to be entered one street over, on Franklin Street, through the Woodruff Village housing project on a road carved out named Wayman Palmer Court.
I drove by the building in December to see if this was the building I had photographed 42 years ago, and clearly it was, but Save The Childrenwas gone! So I checked with the Arts Commission, the agency in charge of public art, and they kindly provided me with information.
I discovered that Save The Children was the very first “1% For Art” installation. I used to work for the Arts Commission during that time, so I vaguely remember when the program started. It was a big deal. The city passed an ordinance for the allocation of 1% of the cost of new public buildings to be used for buying and installing public art.
The sad news is that Save The Childrenwas deaccessioned and removed in 1989. It was made of materials that did not hold up, and it fell apart.
bad feng shui
Fast forward 42 years, during which time I moved away for a photography career in New York and returned. In September 2021 a new YMCA was announced for the Warren-Sherman neighborhood. It will cost over $20 million and have a swimming pool. It’s something the community says is badly needed. It will be built this time facing the main street, Bancroft, with the parking lot approachable from Bancroft. That’s good because now you can only get to the parking lot from one street over, to the west of N. 14th street, having to enter it on a road built through a public housing project. When I was there in the middle of the day, there were only three cars in the parking lot.
Save The Children
The failure of Save The Childrenforetold the failure of the building itself. Perhaps the architects, art supporters, and politicians should have had a better approach, as the front entrance was tucked away on a side street and closed, limiting personal interaction with the sculpture, Save The Children, which was quietly removed after 10 years.
It’s weird to have witnessed the ground-breaking of this new community center and the fanfare of the Save The Children dedication with the Vice President of the United States being present to honor it, only to see a few decades later, the emptiness of such grand gestures, along with the emptiness of the building itself. The building is getting torn down after only 42 years. It will be replaced, they say, by a really great building, but for the generations of children that have not been saved, it’s too bad that Save The Children and the Bancroft-Kent Center could not have fulfilled that promise.
With all of the heart-breaking shootings and killings of innocent children that Toledo is experiencing, I hope the current committee of judges for the new building’s “1% For Art” will consider installing a new Save The Children, one that will persevere.
Installation of Save The Children by Paxton Cooper at the Bancroft-Kent Community Center in 1979. Please try it again.
Isaac Paul Rader, famous for his paperback cover illustrations, is “entirely a Toledo product.”
He learned his craft by taking classes at the Toledo Museum of Art; his teacher was Karl Kappes. At the tender age of 14 (he might have been 15), he won top prize in the fourth annual Toledo Area Artists Exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art. That made him famous – his museum win was a true legend enduring all of his life and written about in his obits!
He moved to Detroit, where, in his twenties, he made a name for himself as the premiere artist for official portraits of judges.
Then he moved to New York and became a magazine illustrator. His paperback covers, created in the 1960’s, are highly collectable.
Google Images screenshot, 2022The Toledo Blade, June 26, 1986Detroit Free Press, June 10, 1986Toledo Times, March 28, 1921, Isaac Rader “entirely a Toledo product.”Toledo Blade March 1921, The Carpenter by Isaac Rader. An oil painting of his father at work, painted life-size.
The first prize going to a 15-year old caused quite a stir in Toledo — but he had to win. His stunning painting, which was painted life-size, was better than any other entry. The jury included Nina Spalding Stevens (head of the art school and wife of the museum director) and Blake-More Godwin (who would become the next museum director, in 1927.)
That was the last year the Federation did their own judging. For every Toledo area artist show after that, the Federation utilized judges from out of town (until the last two, in 2013 and 2014, which were judged by the museum director and associate director– we know what happened after that…)
Another reason to bring back the real Toledo Area Artists Exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art, to help Toledo artists become famous like Isaac Paul Rader!
Subject: May Show Season
Date: 04/06/2022 11:19AM
To: ALevine@toledomuseum.org, rsewell@toledomuseum.org
Dear Adam and Rhonda,
I just posted a new-found artist, Isaac Paul Rader, on artistsoftoledo.com – I thought you might be interested. At age 14, he won top prize in the TAA show, and went on to have quite a career as an artist. Just an example of the missed opportunities for young Toledo artists without the museum’s annual area artists show. It means something to be shown at the Toledo Museum of Art – it can really change one’s life!
It’s exciting to see the changes at the museum — how is the Community Gallery coming along?
A special day for both the museum and for the public.
On this day, January 17, in 1912, the brand new Toledo Museum of Art building was officially opened to the public. At the event, during which Edward Drummond Libbey ceremoniously opened the doors to the museum, which was also his wife, Florence Scott Libbey’s birthday, Toledo mayor Brand Whitlock presented the museum with the key to the city.
110 years later on this day, you could say that the museum returned the favor to the city of Toledo, by opening its doors on a Monday (a day it has always been closed) in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
You could sit in the Libbey Court and watch Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “I Had A Dream,” under the portrait of Edward Drummond Libbey.
It was a very special day, and a lot of people came.
It’s just too damn bad that nobody who works at the museum (except for the historian) was even aware that January 17 was the museum’s anniversary. (I know because I asked several museum workers that day, including a museum Trustee, and they were totally unaware, but one called up to the historian’s office, who told them it was indeed the 110th anniversary of the opening of the building.) That must be because they are deliberately erasing the museum history to form a new narrative — and the great museum history gets shoved down the memory hole. They hired a “brand” manager to give them a new voice. The museum is finding itself — because they are no longer the great teaching institution that they used to be – Fellows used to teach – imagine that! – 2,500 public school children filled classes every Saturday, and adult classes during the week! The museum used to be the hub of the art world for local artists — imagine that! The community “drew its vitality from its existence in the heart of the art world” which was the museum. There were annual juried local artist shows, and monthly individual local artist shows! All of that took considerable effort, along with having blockbuster shows, which they no longer have anymore, either. Today, in their rebranding, they apologize for being such a beautiful white marble columned building. They want everyone to think that our museum began as a stand-offish place for the Mrs. Libbeys of the world (rich white women married to rich white men who collect “art” out of boredom) when actually the museum was started by local artists, and run by a modern, progressive, liberal, inclusive, hard-working and talented husband and wife team — George and Nina Stevens.
Wiping out the museum’s history of inclusion, and then rebranding the museum to be inclusive, is an extreme insult to our community, and I mean every person who lives in Toledo – we are getting used – as well as every Mrs. Libbey or Mrs. McKelvy of Toledo who has bequeathed anything to the museum and given her time and money for our city to have better education, better music, and a strong French Impressionist collection of paintings at our museum. I think these women ought to be respected and not used to highlight differences, which is divisive. They gave our city so much. And they did — it’s always been our museum.
We the people of Toledo are getting manipulated once again by an out-of-town director who is getting a lot of publicity at our expense. Selling our masterpieces! OH!
I hope Director Adam Levine is getting the controversy he was quoted as hoping for when he announced that he was selling our great French Impressionist paintings by Matisse, Renoir, and Cézanne. The museum recently had a fundraiser and raised $42 million to replenish their art-buying fund. That’s not enough to buy new artwork?
The museum’s trustees are apparently getting used like the rest of us, as our strong art collections get minimized, and our valuable paintings are used as currency, as if the museum is a for-profit blood-sucking corporation and not the educational non-profit institution that it was set up to be.
What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Brand Whitlock, mayor of Toledo, 1906-1914 (painted by I. Abramofsky), and Sam “Golden Rule” Jones, mayor of Toledo, 1897-1904. The political progressives, like George Stevens, were similar in spirit. (Jones’ house stood where the Peristyle now stands.)
A Man and a Dream George Stevens had a dream too, and it became our magnificent Toledo Museum of Art. Nina Spalding Stevens wrote a book about it titled A Man and a Dream, see excerpts here.
June Boyd with her great granddaughter, Leilani, photographed at the Toledo Museum of Art on October 27, 2021. “I’m a fighter and I’m looking to provide a better future not only for my family, but for all these little children I spend time with.” June Boyd, Second Wind, Interview by Rev. Donald L. Perryman, PhD, Sojourner Truth, Sept. 18, 2019 (Note that baby Leilani came along after the publication of that interview two years ago. She now has a new great granddaughter, one month old, so when June Boyd says she wants a better future for the kids, she means business!)
June Boyd
June Boyd is one sharp octogenarian. Two years ago, she ran for city council at age 84. She’s a great grandmother raising two of her great grandchildren. She’s an activist for children and is fighting the blight and violence she has seen grown out of control in Toledo.
After 60 years in politics, June Boyd is very wise. She has experienced many firsts in her long Toledo history. When she was just two years old, she moved to Toledo with her mother from Georgia to the shiny new Brand Whitlock housing project on Junction Avenue behind the Toledo Museum of Art. It was a great place to live, with all the modern appliances. The first generation growing up at Brand Whitlock reads like a who’s who in the history of Black Toledo.
June Boyd was the first African-American to graduate from St. Ursula Academy high school, in 1953. To get her enrolled in the what was then an all-white girls Catholic school, in 1948, her mother called and asked if they would take black girls. The nun answered, “I don’t see why not!” When Ned Skeldon, president of the Lucas County Board of Commissioners, put out the word in 1959 that the county board would like to hire African-Americans, she was the first to be hired, and she worked for Skeldon himself. She paved the way for many black women working in politics. In 1993, she along with Edna Brown were the first two black women elected for Toledo City Council.
She did not win the election in 2019, but still works her agenda in the community to improve conditions for children in Toledo’s central city. She writes letters and gives interviews. Lucky for us, she keeps on keeping on, and she does it for the kids.
“I recall Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz stating it was his intention to hire 30, 40 and 50 year olds in his administration totally excluding senior citizens or anyone over 50 who just might have the wisdom and knowledge to address the foregoing,” Letter to the Editor from June Boyd, Sojourner’s Truth,Sept. 30, 2021
Toledo sadly lacks the wisdom and knowledge of what once made it great. The city eschews the hiring of senior citizens or anyone close to being a wise elder. Memory of the past is the first to go in times of corruption, and we are living in corrupt times.
The Toledo Museum of Art is built on the same ground on which Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones had once lived.
Golden Rule Jones
Who knows about Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones? He was the Mayor of Toledo from 1897 until he died in 1904.
Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones is ranked the 5th all-time best mayor in the United States. Jones built Toledo’s first city playgrounds and public swimming pools.
Jones was a millionaire who gave away his entire mayoral salary every month to needy people. He built the Golden Rule Park for his employees and gave them instruments for their newly-formed Golden Rule Band. He gave his workers 8-hour work days, paid vacations, health insurance and Christmas bonuses. He made his fortune in the oil business, a consequence of the oil monopoly that would not be broken up until five years after his death. Rich through ugly monopoly at age 43, Jones had an existential moment where he saw clearly that he had to live by the golden rule. Thus, he was elected mayor.
Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones died of a sudden illness at age 57, but he had a protege – the young lawyer and novelist, Brand Whitlock.
Brand Whitlock
Whitlock was an artist and intellectual at heart, without much interest in money. He served as Mayor of Toledo from 1906 to 1914, when President Wilson appointed him minister/ambassador to Belgium. He then served overseas throughout the Great War until 1921, when he moved to the French Rivera to write his books. He died in Cannes at the age of 65. Two years later, in 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt named Toledo’s magnificent new housing project, the “Brand Whitlock Homes.”
Whitlock and Jones served during 15 years of the Progressive era. Their spirit was similar to that of the Toledo Museum of Art, founded in 1901, the foundation of which embraced his time and literally, his space. It was right beneath the Peristyle.
Brand Whitlock by Israel Abramofsky – a gift to the mayor from the young artist, who befriended him, and as mayor, Whitlock wrote Abramofsky a recommendation for his study in Paris. Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones
The real deal
Golden Rule Jones made the City of Toledo livable — he sought to turn love into municipal policy, feeling that “each person could reach a kind of perfection just as plants reach perfect beauty.” By building parks, playgrounds, public swimming pools and the zoo, he helped children and families thrive.
Jones advocated for municipal ownership of utilities, to do away with the corruption of “closed backroom deals” made by city council members and their buddies. A good utilization of municipal ownership today could be city-owned broadband that would cover the entire city. Imagine the savings as well as the access. Like healthcare for all! Ha ha!
Jones and Whitlock fought for “home rule” to protect the rights of the city against the state. It’s a right we need to have our city invoke today in regard to the county’s over-reaching ditch petition, which appears more like a closed backroom deal between the city and the county, and now we the citizens of Toledo need to be protected from them!
For a while, Toledo became a better place to live, all because of the innocent, pure vision of Sam Golden Rule Jones. He was the real deal. The entire city came to his funeral, he was so loved.
Today when we hear the name, Brand Whitlock, instead of it conjuring up this great progressive mayor and novelist, we tend to think of the failed Brand Whitlock housing project instead. The Brand Whitlock Homes were once was great, then pushed down the memory hole. June Boyd remembers.
A happy childhood at the Brand Whitlock Homes is the reason why June Boyd advocates so diligently for Toledo’s youth —
“We need a total overhaul: Swayne Field could have a bowling alley; Warren Sherman could have a skating rink; there are dozens of vacant land that could be putt-putt golf and go-karts for our kids. I personally have to drive my grandchildren a long way to get the go-karts they love. Why do we not have them in the central city which would not only create employment, it would be a boost to our neighborhood, and something we could teach our young to appreciate.” Letter to the Editor from June Boyd, Sojourner’s Truth,Sept. 30, 2021
How about more police, to police the outrageous crime spiking in Toledo? How about cleaning up the central city blight? Can’t the city make parks and playgrounds safe? Why such a low percentage of police in our community compared to the 8.8 million population in New York City, a city with nearly twice as many police officers per capita than Toledo, and less per capita crime?
“There are many adults around here who graduated from school and they are illiterate, and then you wonder why they can’t get any jobs, and not to mention the drug problem, the homelessness, the abandonment and the fact that people have gotten so beat down until they don’t have any encouragement to do anything else.” June Boyd, Second Wind, Interview by Rev. Donald L. Perryman, PhD,Sojourner Truth, Sept. 18, 2019
It means a great deal to know someone as wise and experienced as June Boyd and to be able to benefit from her perspective. I asked Ms. Boyd if she could identify people in this photo I shot at this groundbreaking ceremony on October 31, 1978. She gave me three names. Who else could do that — she was there 43 year ago, and she is still here with us. Although two men, Wayman Palmer and Bill Copeland, are not. How great June Boyd is for her wisdom alone! If only she had won city council instead of her opponent who won, who actually got arrested a year later for fraud along with three other city council members — talk about corruption!
“It’s time to pay attention to the children. Teachers, ministers, grandparents, and responsible parents, notice what children are doing. If they have a gun, where did it come from? If they are neglected, they become pawns for adults who want to take advantage of them for their own profit… We must take an interest in our youth… Do something!” June Boyd, Let’s come together to save Toledo’s children, The Blade, Oct. 9, 2021
Ned Skeldon, center, in Promenade Park with baby elephant, 1970's. Betty Mauk Papers, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections. Photocomposition by Penny Gentieu
Downtown Toledo waterfront, circa 1920’s. Betty Mauk Papers, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections
Two proactive Toledoans in the 1970’s
made Toledo rivers and riverfront livable.
Betty Mauk (1918 – 2012)
Betty Mauk made the downtown Toledo riverfront livable.
Betty Mauk was born in 1918. Her mother died in childbirth. Her father died when she was six months old, a victim of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Betty grew up in the Old West End, cared for by her society aunts and uncle. She married, raised a family, and lived in Ottawa Hills.
In 1964, the riverfront was a literal parking lot. But the commissioner of harbors and bridges put out park benches, then picnic tables, for the workers, who were going down to the river with their bag lunches.
Betty visited France, her great love, at least 50 times in her lifetime. When the downtown Toledo waterfront was lined with parking lots and old abandoned buildings, in the 1960’s during the time they were considering building the 475 – I-75 expressway along the river, Betty had a vision to turn the waterfront into a Parisian park, transforming the Maumee riverfront into the Seine.
Betty had the “savoir faire” and “je ne sais quoi” to turn the riverfront into a real park, giving it a French festival atmosphere, with monkeys, elephants, musicians, puppet shows and plays. Betty furnished it with an authentic French kiosk imported from Paris, and she herself operated a crepe stand. Betty and her husband bought a boat, the Arawanna II, and gave rides in their boat up and down the Maumee River.
A nativity play at Promenade Park in the 1970’s. Ned Skeldon is the third wise man on the left.
Imagine how our downtown riverfront would look today if a big expressway had been built over it, which might have happened if it weren’t for Betty Mauk. And that’s not all she did…
Ned Skeldon (1924 – 1988)
“a malodorous cesspool”
Ned Skeldon, who is the father of Tina Skeldon Wozniak, the current President of the Board of Lucas County Commissioners, made the Maumee River livable.
Ned Skeldon, city politician, Lucas County commissioner, fresh from bringing baseball back to Toledo in 1965 after a nine-year absence, was disgusted by the filthy condition of the Maumee River and Lake Erie. He warned that in 50 years, if something wasn’t done, the river and the lake would become a marsh.
Ned Skeldon had an equal amount of Betty Mauk’s “savoir faire” and “je ne sais quoi,” Midwestern style. A charismatic politician possessing much chutzpah, Ned, for the show of it, independently formed a temporary non-profit corporation, Clear Water, Inc., with five Toledo industrial leaders, to raise awareness and money to clean up the river and lake.
With such luminary partners as Steve Stranahan, Thomas Anderson of the Andersons, Charles Ballard, director of the UAW Region 2-B in NW Ohio, Dr. William T. Jerome III, president of BGSU, and John Willey, the associate publisher of the Toledo Blade, Ned Skeldon described Clear Water, Inc. to be “primarily a public relations organization,” its purpose is to alert the general public to the dangers of water pollution and prod them into action.
In 1968, Clear Water, Inc. sent a cleanup barge up Swan Creek, a river running into the Maumee in downtown Toledo, which had become a dump.
Clear Water, Inc. became a funding agency for state and federal pollution control funds. Since 1966, it has provided more than $1.75 billion in 2021 dollars for municipal and industrial pollution control facilities in the Maumee basin.
Ned Skeldon swam in the Maumee River in 1973 to symbolize the improvements made. This is the Blade photo for the article, Hundreds see Skeldon Master Muddy Maumee. “Like a bug thrashing in coffee with cream,” Ned said. The Blade, July 16, 1973.
“Every municipality of more than 5,000 population in the Maumee basin has improved sewage treatment facilities,” said Ned Skeldon in 1978. And the river was much cleaner as a result of Ned Skeldon’s grassroots efforts…
Ned Skeldon is one of the originators of the water-clean-up grant system we have today. These are some of the long-lasting accomplishments of Clear Water, Inc.:
helped to initiate the federal Clean Water Act.
and the formation of the Ohio Water Development Authority (1966) a funding agency for state and federal pollution control funds.
city of Toledo approved a $17 million bond issue to combat pollution by 1969, did more than other cities
Ohio EPA
Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act Ohio Water Development Commission (or Authority) — offering industries treatment facilities on a rental basis (1968) Skeldon appointed to newly created board by Governor Rhodes
Federal Water Pollution Control Agency, 1968
Ohio Water Development Authority – a funding agency for state and federal funds
Through Ned Skeldon’s efforts, many commissions and agencies came into existence that were able to get municipalities and industries to stop dumping filth and poison into the water.
Clear Water, Inc. was a “coordinating agency for citizens, local, state and national governments and other agencies interested in cleaning up the waterways in the Maumee River basin.” Lancaster Eagle Gazette, Dec 7, 1978
Ned Skeldon, in 1978, declared that he did the job he set out to do, to clean up the river and the lake, and closed Clear Water, Inc. for business. He always intended to do just that. He died in 1988.
One year after Ned Skeldon died, a Clear Water, Inc. founder granted Betty Mauk permission to start it up again, so that she could continue the Swan Creek cleanup work that Skeldon began in 1968 . . Betty Mauk worked on it throughout the 1990’s.
Clear Water gets grant, The Blade, December 19, 1990. Betty Mauk, of Clear Water, Inc. is photographed with Tom Kovacik and Peter Fraleigh (who later had a dirty, filthy Ottawa River tributary that was cleaned up, named after him.) They led a program for students to test the water of the rivers in the 1990’s. Betty Mauk Papers, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections
Here’s a random list of agencies, groups and projects that with the help of volunteers and experts, take care of our rivers since Ned Skeldon’s Clear Water, Inc. started it all:
Maumee Remedial Action Plan Advisory Committee in NW Ohio
Station 14, before and after. Layers of damage embedded in the 14th Station created its own expression.
William H. Machen, Toledo’s first known artist, made these paintings between 1866 and 1873 for the St. Francis Parish in Toledo. Decades ago, a fire at the church damaged the paintings. Poor restoration caused the paintings further damage, hence, sometime in late 2007 they were crated and put in storage.
Station 1 original damaged painting, partially crated and shown here in 2010 in the St. Francis sacristy, and the digitally restored version in 2021.
In 2010, when I began this website, I went to see the damaged paintings. Soon after, I met William Machen’s great-nephew, James Machen. James hired me to photograph the damaged paintings in 2012. I put them on this website and we tried to garner interest in the restoration of the original paintings.
Jim Machen with his retouched rendition of Station 4.
When it didn’t seem likely that we would be able to restore the originals, Jim learned how to digitally retouch a set of low-res files of the photos and made a 24″ set of prints of the 14 paintings. This set ended up in a church in the Philippines. Sadly, in November 2020, James Machen passed away.
Then in December 2020, an architect working on the renovation of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Genoa, Ohio found my webpage about the paintings. The church’s priest contacted me about making large digital restorations of the paintings to hang in their church, which was a tremendous honor.
Holding the finished canvas of Station 4 (right); photograph of the original damaged painting in 2012.Dale, the caretaker at St. Francis shown with the damaged original painting of Station 11, and my self-portrait with Station 12 in 2012, next to the 2021 digitally restored images.
My 54″ digital restorations of the paintings are layered with the patina of their distinct 150-year history. The paintings are important to our history because they are painted by Toledo’s first known artist for Toledo’s first Catholic church. They were taken down by the church in 2007 and crated. Their fate was up in the air. But now, 15 years later, William H. Machen’s images hang once again on local church walls as they were originally intended. They have a new life in the beautiful, renovated Our Lady of Lourdes Church in the nearby town of Genoa.
Perhaps this story will inspire a way to restore the original paintings, which would entail hundreds of hours and as well as (guessing) about a hundred thousand dollars. The varnish would have to be removed and the flaking paint would have to be scraped off and re-painted. With my digital restorations, the best that I could do by using photography and technology combined with the finest archival art materials to instill them with artistic and historic integrity, William H. Machen’s paintings can once again be appreciated by the public.
It’s a great accomplishment for artistsoftoledo.com’s 11th year in terms of our mission to remember Toledo’s art history.
Standing next to Station 5 with Keith, who is making custom oak frames for the Stations, and Father Ferris at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in May 2021.The stations were installed in the church with digitally controlled focused lights that make them glow like stained glass windows.
More about William H. Machen and James Machen here:
Crucifix by LeMaxie Glover at St. Richard's Church in Swanton, Ohio
St. Richard’s Church in Swanton, Ohio
LeMaxie Glover’s lifesize walnut crucifix in the babtistry of St. Richard’s Church in Swanton, Ohio.
LeMaxie Glover, 1916 – 1984
Le Maxie Glover was born in Macon, Georgia in 1916. He received a MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
He showed at the Toledo Museum of Art in the Toledo Area Artists Exhibitions from 1956 to 1964, and the Black Artists of Toledo Exhibitions in 1973 and 1974. He had a one-man show at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1970.
He showed in the Michigan Area Artists Show in 1957, Ohio Sculptors Show in 1962; the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, 1963; Contemporary Sculptors Show at the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1963. He had numerous one man shows.
He is in the collections of the Williston, N.D. Museum of Art; the Besser Museum of Art, Alpina, Michigan; and in numerous Toledo area institutions.
A critique on the museum’s 5-year plan for growth
as reported by The Blade
The last paragraph in the above article.
In the spirit of community involvement, I’m compelled to offer some feedback on the recent article in The Blade about the museum’s future. But first a discussion about the last paragraph in the article, “The Toledo Museum of Art was founded in 1901 by Mr. Libbey and his wife, Florence Scott Libbey.” That’s incorrect – The Toledo Museum of Art was founded by a group of artists.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean to say that Libbey was not important in the establishment of the museum – he was by far the chief benefactor in establishing the Toledo Museum of Art. But to say that he and his wife founded it is like throwing the museum’s populist history down the memory hole.
There are many near-contemporaneous accounts of how the Toledo Museum of Art was founded by a group of artists.
This is how Osthaus is described in the Toledo Museum of Art’s own collection:
The Blade, October 29, 1926. Obituary of George W. Stevens, the museum’s long-time second director, founding member of the Tile Club, the group of artists responsible for “procuring a museum of Toledo.”
The Blade, September 30, 1922: “Museum Idea Takes Form” In 1893, the painter, Thomas Parkhurst formed the Tile Club, a group consisting of artists and architects in 1893. In 1900 the club had its first exhibition at Parkhurst’s store on Superior St. Out of that event grew a movement. After the exhibition, the group of artists and architects was so enthused and fired up with the idea of establishing a home for art in Toledo that they got together with George Stevens as the leader, and talked art museum day and night. Robinson Locke, son of David R. Locke of Petroleum V. Nasby letters fame, helped through The Blade. Finally, George Stevens, “in an inspired moment” elicited the co-operation of Edward Drummond Libbey, who gave them the use of an old building on Madison Ave. and 12th Street to use for the museum, but they needed money…
The Blade, March 27, 1923The Blade, March 27, 1923
Edward Drummond Libbey was the biggest benefactor, and he encouraged community involvement because everyone wanted a museum that belonged to the people. Libbey matched donations, and children collected pennies to contribute to the building fund.
The Toledo Museum of Art was always OUR museum….
Nearly all cities of any size in the country have their museums and galleries, which are fast becoming a necessity….We owe it to ourselves, to the school children of Toledo, and to the future generations to see that our good work shall continue, that we lay a foundation so solid and so complete that the future citizens of Toledo will look back upon this, our pioneer work, with praise and appreciation. — Edward Drummond Libbey. First annual report of The Toledo Museum of Art.
By the Seventies, the museum was in high gear: it was a leading teaching museum, providing annually about eight Educational Fellowships, training museum professionals from all over the country, who also helped with the free children’s Saturday classes that drew around 2,000 children per week. The Toledo Museum of Art ranked in the top 10 American art museums for popularity and assets. It was the center of the community art scene, with not only Saturday classes for grade school and high school students, but for its small but superior college art program in the basement of the museum, the Toledo Museum of Art School of Design, which extended to adult classes. That really brought in the community.
The museum also had monthly shows featuring local artists from 1933 to 1970, 540 in total, for both men and women artists. Beginning in 1918 it hosted the annual Toledo Area Artists Exhibition, celebrating the local art community. The museum was alive with community involvement.
The Blade, February 15, 1993
In the 1990’s, the museum’s School of Design and much of the adult education ended when the Frank Gehry building was built, which was connected to the east side of the museum. The University of Toledo’s School of Visual Arts occupies the space, taking over for the museum’s School of Design. The extensive children’s Saturday class program slipped away. The Saturday class program that had served the community for many decades became a sorry shadow of what it used to be.
What have they done to OUR museum?
Director of the museum from 2010 to 2019, Dr. Brian Kennedy at the Toledo Museum of Art Halloween party, October 28, 2010
In 2014, under the new director Brian Kennedy’s watch, the venerable, 95-year old tradition of the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition came to a shameful demise when the Toledo Museum of Art opened the show to entries from Detroit, Cleveland and Columbus, populations nine times the size of the Toledo region, while simultaneously limiting the show to only 27 artists. To add insult to injury, they stuffed it with Toledo Museum of Art insiders, mostly men. Additionally, the show was totally devoid of diversity, the absence of which is not the norm and has never been the norm for our TAA show. See a full account of the 2014 show on this website, in the tag cloud in the footer of this page.
In 2011, Brian Kennedy presented his five-year strategic plan. I remember him saying that if art classes were available at one place in town, they were not necessary in two places because that’s redundant, we should save resources. Kennedy’s “basic principles” projected on the screen contradicted what he was saying there, as would his subsequent actions to what was projected on the screen.
An overhead slide projected at Brian Kennedy’s presentation of his “5-year Strategic Plan.” at the 93rd TAA jury dinner, August 2011.
In 2015, a few months after the 2014 TAA show debacle, I was at the museum attending the senior curator Larry Nichol’s gallery talk about a particular painting we were sitting on front of in the gallery, when at the end, he asked the small group of people before him, mostly age 45 and up, how to bring younger people in. I raised my hand and said, bring your children’s classes back. Bring the TAA show back. Bring the monthly local shows back. He said, “noted.”
What did they expect would happen to attendance at the museum, when they take everything away that enlivened the art community, from classes for children and adults to lending a wall for a local art show?
Yoga on the steps of the museum if you are between 24 and 45. July 2014
The exclusive, discriminatory “Circle 2445” membership effort designed to bring in the museum’s desired younger members was short-lived. The overt ageist discrimination insulted many people.
click on letter to see more…
In other ways too, the Museum became unresponsive to the Toledo community. For example, here’s a story having to do with Toledo’s first artist, William H. Machen, who died in 1911. Over the years, his descendants have approached the museum for advice, once in 1941 and again in 2015 — see the contrast in responses between the third museum director, Blake-More Godwin and the ninth director, Brian Kennedy…
In 2019, Brian Kennedy resigned after only eight years to become the director of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. (Which might be a fine historical museum that is owned by Harvard University, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the great Toledo Museum of Art.)
Now then, back to the subject of this post, a critique of the new 5-year plan as outlined in the above screen-shotted March 9, 2021 Blade article…
the new 5-year strategic plan
to continue to build on its diverse collection... Well that’s good, because Edward Drummond Libbey’s bequest stipulates that half of the money taken from the fund in any given year must go to buying new art.
working more closely with local artists through a more active outreach and engagement strategy… Does this mean they will bring our Toledo Area Artists Exhibition back? Have they forgotten the relationship they used to have with local artists? I hope they will read my blog post, it’s outlined above!
becoming an employer of choice through support and retention policies…Hasn’t the Toledo Museum of Art ALWAYS been an employer of choice? Or are they talking about the museum guards, whom for many years were hired from our community of senior citizens, but about 10 years ago the museum started replacing senior citizens with young people, who just aren’t sticking with the job like the seniors did, because being a long-time museum guard is a dead-end job… Are they using young people for their ageist young image?
creating a platform for operational excellence through the upgrade of visitor amenities, making museum access a priority, growing the museum’s financial base and becoming more efficient…
Are we doing great?
Culture of Belonging
and Authentic Integration
of great art and everyday community
As if words, regardless of deeds, will make it so.
That’s exactly what the Toledo Museum of Art used to do. The Toledo Museum of Art didn’t have to try to be authentic — the Museum oozed with authenticity and community involvement. That’s because it was our museum – it belonged to the people of Toledo – it was Edward Drummond Libbey and the artist founders’ intention – funded in part with the pennies of the children who have since become our forefathers.
Will the Toledo Museum of Art bring back our venerable, prestigious Toledo Area Artists Exhibition? Will they bring our classes back? Will the Museum ever be the center of the working artist community again? Or will it continue to be a place for yoga on the front steps for the 24-45 crowd, and “baby and me” looking-at-art classes in the galleries for bored (but sufficiently young) parents?
The artists of Toledo can’t wait to find out.
The last authentic Toledo Area Artists Exhibition, 2013, and the 94th TAA Awards Ceremony at the Peristyle. Brian Kennedy and Amy Gilman handing out awards. The prestigious juried exhibition has launched many a young artist’s career.
The Blade 1999 photo used for James Machen's online news obituary.
James Machen died on November 7, 2020 at the age of 91. Thanks to James Machen, a member of one of the oldest families in Toledo, we have paintings showing how Toledo looked at the very beginning. His great uncle, William H. Machen was Toledo’s earliest known artist, who migrated from Holland to Toledo in 1848. James Machen actively preserved his ancestor’s artwork and history. In doing so, he greatly honored his family, while also greatly honoring his community.
James Machen’s obituary, The Blade, November 11, 2020James Machen and William Machen’s Painting Number 1. April 18, 2010.David and Jim Machen posing next to their ancestor’s painting of the Ten-Mile Creek. February 19, 2012.Jim Machen with his restored rendition of William Machen’s Station No. 4, April 16, 2015.Jim Machen’s William Machen’s restored Station No. 1 in a church in the Philippines, 2018.
Toledo in 1852 by William H. Machen. Gift to the Toledo Lucas County Public Library by James Machen in 1999.Chosen for James Machen’s online Blade news obituary is this very official yet very poignant photo from 1999 of the Toledo Lucas County Library commemorating James Machen and his gift of this painting, Toledo in 1852.
James Machen’s family history going back to the twelfth century:
The authoritative, comprehensive random sampling survey of late-seventies iconic world-of-advertising and subjective definitive targeting, as I knew it, with some art thrown in.
