Cecil F. Head (Born 1906)
Cecil Head studied art at the John Herron Art Institute. He exhibited at the Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh, 1941); Worlds Fair New York (1939), Hoosier Salon, and the John Herron Art Institute. His work is in the collections of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Children’s Museum (Indianapolis), Indiana State Museum, and the Franklin, Indiana Public Library.
Head was part of a group of modern painters who emerged in the 1930s, including Oakley Richey, Frederick Polley, George Jo Mess, and Edmund Brucker. The Hoosier Salon’s jury selection included many more “avant-garde” paintings in 1931, and there began a split in painters and critics alike, with the old guard traditionalism on one side, and a surge of spirited modernists on the other.
Cecil lived in Whiteland, Indiana, in Johnson County. He donated $1,000 to the Southside Art League, Inc. to establish a fine arts scholarship fund. Cecil said, “I think that’s about the best thing to happen in Johnson County for the arts in a long time.”
Information courtesy of Jackson’s Auction Company, March 2007.