‘The Passage’ made return voyage

The package has arrived.

Or, more accurately, let’s say it has come back home.

After 27 years, it’s looking for space on the shelves.

At the outset, let me acknowledge once again that time flies more rapidly than any of us ever expected. At my age, I’ll often start a story by referring to something “a few years ago” only to realize that “a few” was 15 or 20 or more.

The old phrase “it seems like only yesterday” creeps often into conversations at our house.

In this case, “yesterday” was 1991. (Yes, I know, some of my employees were not yet born in 1991. I still have trouble accepting that fact.)

That year — back in the mists of time — the Indianapolis Museum of Art mounted an especially ambitious exhibition.

It was called, “The Passage.” And it focused on a pivotal period in the development of art in Indiana, a time when — at the turn of the previous century — a handful of Hoosier painters made the passage across the Atlantic to Europe to improve their artistic skills.

Specifically, they traveled to Munich.

It was there that artists such as T.C. Steele made the transformation from regional talents to world-class masters. Steele was not alone in that transformation, but he was — and still is — the biggest name involved.

The exhibit was flat-out marvelous, so marvelous in fact that I popped for the lovely, hardback book that accompanied the show. Page after page of color plates kept the experience of seeing that exhibit alive for us.

The book, as I recall, was pricey. Not out-of-reach pricey, but ouch pricey.

That Christmas it was under the tree with my wife’s name on it, and we both treasured it.

Fast forward several years when my brother Steve was visiting from Minneapolis.

Like the rest of my family, he shares that genetic tweak that draws us to fine art. He had missed the exhibit at the IMA, but he admired the book about “The Passage” when he was at our house.

He admired it so much that he tried to buy a copy at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on the same trip. By his account, the staff at the museum looked for half an hour before telling him that the last copy had been sold.

He kept looking over the years, and he was able to find copies on eBay. But they were even more expensive than the one I had bought. It had become a rarity, and that drives prices up.

The next time he visited us — probably a decade after I bought the book — he told us the story of his search for a copy of his own.

My response — he is my brother after all — was to hand him the copy that I had originally given Connie for Christmas. It was to be an open-ended loan.

Fast forward again to this spring. Steve and his wife have sold their Minneapolis house and moved into a condo. They’re in a constant state of downsizing.

But sometimes you can’t help yourself from acquiring something more.

In Steve’s case, he was in a shop and discovered a copy of “The Passage” at a fraction of the price I had paid back in 1991. He bought it.

And nobody needs two copies of the same book — no matter how beautiful the illustrations — when they are downsizing.

So he wrapped it up and sent it back our way.

Now we just have to find room on our bookshelves for it.