George Joseph Mess

George Joseph Mess (June 30, 1898 – June 24, 1962) was an American painter, printmaker, commercial artist, and art educator. The Cincinnati, Ohio, native began his career as a commercial artist and teacher; however, he became nationally known for his work as an etcher, printmaker, and painter. Along his wife, Evelynne Mess Daily, he became a prominent member of the Indianapolis and Brown County, Indiana, arts communities. Mess produced mostly Impressionist-style landscapes as a painter, but he was especially known for his aquatint etchings and prints of rural scenes in the modern styles of the 1930s and 1940s. Mess was also a founder of the Circle Art Academy, a commercial art school in Indianapolis, Indiana, that operated from 1927 to 1932, and founded a local engraving company. Mess was the recipient of several prizes and awards for his art from the Hoosier Salon, the Herron Art Institute (a forerunner of the Herron School of Art and Design and the Indianapolis Museum of Art), the Indiana State Fair, and various state and local arts clubs. His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Indiana Historical Society, and Minnetrista, among others. His illustrations also appeared in several print publications.

Early life and education George Joseph Mess was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 30, 1898, to Anna Gleis Mess (1875–1960) and Joseph J. Mess (1871–1933). Mess's father was of German heritage; his mother's family was of German and Dutch ancestry. The Mess family moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1899, when Joseph Mess took a job as a foreman of the photoengraving department at the Indianapolis News, one of the city's major daily newspapers.

George Mess, second of the family's three sons, became interested in art and wanted to become an artist at an early age. At the age of thirteen he received a scholarship to attend Saturday-morning art classes for children at the John Herron Art Institute, a forerunner to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Mess also attended Indianapolis's public schools, graduating from Emmerich Manual High School in 1916. His two brothers, Arthur and Gordon, also became artists.

Marriage and family Mess met artist Evelynne Bernloehr while attending one of William Forsyth's evening art classes at the Herron Art Institute. Within months of their first meeting, Mess and Bernloehr were married on April 28, 1925, at her family's home in Indianapolis. The couple set up an art studio in the living room of their home in suburban Broad Ripple. In 1941 they also bought a farm outside Nashville in Brown County, Indiana, to use as a weekend retreat from the city. Evelynne and George Mess had no children. Seven years after Mess's death in 1962, his widow married Edward Daily. Evelynne Mess Daily died on January 9, 2003, at the age of 100.

Career Mess began his artistic career in 1921 as an artist in Indianapolis, where he established a commercial art business with his younger brother, Gordon, and continued his art training in the evening at the Herron Art Institute.

During the summer of 1929 George and Evelynne Mess took a break from their work in Indianapolis to study art at the École des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleau, France. In 1931 he was awarded a fellowship from The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation to study in New York.

Mess exhibited his art at international exhibitions in Stockholm, Paris, and Rome, as well as at national shows at venue such as the Hoosier Salon, the Herron Art Institute, the Indiana State Fair, the Indiana Artists Club, the Indiana Society of Printmakers, the Society of American Etchers, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dayton Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, among others.

In 1937 Mess and his wife moved to Chicago, where he took a job supervising the reproduction of artwork for several magazines that included Esquire, Coronet, and Apparel Arts. The Messes returned to Indianapolis in 1940, a year after he was diagnosed with cancer.

Due to his ongoing ill health, Mess occasionally taught at the Indianapolis Art League and at the Herron Art Institute. In 1949 he became a part-time instructor of art at Indiana University's campus in Indianapolis (the present-day Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis), a position he retained until his death in 1962.

Mess began his career as a commercial artist and art educator; however, he became nationally known for his work as a printmaker and painter. Winter Moonlight Wishing Gate

At the Indianapolis Museum of Art: Ed Luckey's Farm (1937) Metamora (1935) Southern Oak (1936)

At the Indiana Historical Society: Christmas Eve (1936)