CGA junior curating a digital exhibition of Gold Star portraits that were long missing

A Culver Girls Academy junior is working to ensure the Gold Star portraits of Culver alumni killed in World War I that went missing for nearly 60 years won’t ever again be forgotten.

Visual arts prefect Grace Proctor ’26 is working alongside visual arts instructors Diana Westphal, Peter Hiatt and Jack Williams as they catalogue 70 pastel portraits of Culver alumni who died during World War I. A total of 85 Culver men died in the war, but there are only 70 known portraits, two of them created by a recent graduate. Proctor is using the digital images and information to curate a digital exhibition.

Westphal, a senior instructor, said the work to catalogue the Gold Star portrait collections is part of an effort by the visual arts department to thoroughly document Culver’s art collection so it is accessible to instructors and students.

The instructors started creating an accessible database working with Information Technology Director Alexa Gardner ’06 W’01. Two years ago, Aiko Pantuso ’23, as part of her honors project, began working with Westphal to document Culver’s artwork by title and artist.

“We found inaccuracies and missing information that we are researching and updating as we go along,” Westphal said.

With over 800 pieces in the Culver collection, it will take several years to complete, she said.

“Our goal is to eventually touch all the pieces and see what condition they are in and get the database complete,” Westphal said.

When Proctor, who is interested in studying museum curation in college, heard that the visual arts staff was working on the database, she asked if she could help. Westphal told her she was looking for someone to create a digital display of the Gold Star portraits. Proctor jumped at the chance.

“I thought it would be interesting to be part of this,” Proctor said.

Proctor started by using information from an existing Excel file of the 85 Culver Military Academy alumni killed during World War I, the year they graduated, where they served, their ranks when they died, where they died and how they died.

 

 

“It was impressive to see how high the ranks were for all the Culver grads but it was sad to see how they died and where they died. Some of them died only a year or two after graduating from Culver,” she said. “There was another graduate who died just five days before the end of the war, which is really sad.”

Proctor said she might use old yearbook photos for those 15 fallen Culver men who don’t have pastel portraits.

The portraits were discovered in 2011 in a box under a table under the stage in Eppley Auditorium by Jeff Kenney, Culver Academies Museum archives manager, and Art Collection Curator Bob Nowalk, who has since retired. They stumbled upon the box while researching images for the 2012 Woodcraft Centennial.

“It was sort of a mistake that they found the portraits, but it was a very lucky mistake,” Proctor said.

When the Legion Memorial Building was dedicated on Nov. 2, 1924, a photograph of the 62 Culver alumni then known to have died in the war hung in the Gold Star room. The sepia-toned photographs were provided by their families and some of the quality of the photos was poor. Gen. Lee Gignilliat, Culver’s superintendent, who had served in the war and had known all of the men who had died, including his brother-in-law, William Alexander Fleet, wanted to have a better-quality display.

Gignilliat commissioned a young Indiana artist named Hugh Poe in 1925 to create portraits using notes from their families about the color of their eyes, hair and skin. Poe was paid $24.20 per portrait, the equivalent of about $425 per portrait today.

By December 1928, Poe had completed 68 of the then 70 known Culver Gold Star men when Gignilliat suspended the project, apparently for financial reasons. By 1930, the list of Culver men known to have died during the war had grown to 85.

Over the years, pressure grew to turn the Gold Star Room into less of a memorial and more of a usable place, but Gignilliat pushed for Culver to keep the room even after he retired in 1939. The portraits were kept up until after his death in 1952, when they were placed in storage until they were found in 2011.

 

 

“The fact they were still really well intact is amazing,” Proctor said.

Some of the portraits were damaged and had to be restored, Westphal said. Proctor is impressed by Poe’s work.

“It’s hard to believe how amazing he was at pastels because pastels are really hard to use and are easy to damage. So the fact that they are really well intact is amazing,” she said.

An exhibit of the portraits opened at the Crisp Visual Arts Center on Veterans Day 2018 and remained up for 10 months.

Frank (Feiyang) Liu ’19, a talented pastel artist, completed two more portraits in 2019, bringing the total completed portraits to 70. Those are the portraits being catalogued. 

The three instructors and Proctor meet regularly during office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays to photograph the portraits and input the information. The goal is to have the digital exhibition done by spring break so it will be ready for a digital display in the Crisp rotunda in May, when the Gold Star ceremony is held. Proctor said there’s also been talk about featuring them at All-School Meetings in May.

Proctor said it’s been a great experience.

“It’s some I definitely plan to put it on my resume, but it’s been even more gratifying being part of the team helping to keep alive the memory of these brave men,” she said.