Artists: Thomas Entiekin Hibben (1859-1915) and Helene Hibben (1882-1968)

While he may have had some artistic aspirations of his own, it is as an art patron that Tom Hibben takes his place in local art history. Without his support and friendship, this history may have been significantly different. The pressure of running his family-owned dry goods store — Hibben, Hollweg & Company — kept him from pursuing his own dreams of a life of art. Instead, he used the financial resources of the company to support the art world.

Hibben paid for his friend William Forsyth (buried in Crown Hill Cemetery) to study in Munich in exchange for one half of the art work he would do while abroad. He also arranged local exhibits to sell works that Forsyth and T. C. Steele would send him from Europe in order to help finance their studies. Without his help, there very well might not have been a Hoosier Group.

Tom took the money he was making from the dry goods store to design and build a home at 5237 Pleasant Run Parkway. This home became the site of the Hibben School, where for many years his sister Helene continued the Hibben tradition of nurturing local talent by teaching art to young children.

Helene was an artist in her own right. William Forsyth, one of her teachers and an Irvington neighbor, said she was “a young woman with a wonderful degree of talent … Her ability to produce expression is of a character found in few matured artists.” Working primarily as a sculptor, one of her most famous works was a bronze bas-relief bust of James Whitcomb Riley. One of her bronze bas-reliefs sat in the entrance to the children’s ward of the City Hospital.