LOOK BACK KAPPA HISTORY
Brothers and guests from around the world attend the portrait unveiling. Artist Shawn Michael Warren poses with his portrait of Elder Watson Diggs.
an artist to create the portrait and an unveiling celebration event. The School of Education also proposed that any residual funds be applied to the Elder Watson Diggs Scholarship. Stepney reasoned that the remaining funds would not adequately benefit the scholarship endowment. He suggested that the Kappa Foundation allocate $75,000 to the scholarship, bringing the total gift amount from Kappa Alpha Psi and the Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation to $100,000. Scott and Stepney worked closely with School of Education officials to formulate and enact a commission contract and an artist commission application, evaluate potential artists’ sample works, and conduct artist inter- views. Mr. Shawn Michael Warren was
subsequently selected from a pool of 12 highly skilled artists. Mr. Warren was referred for the commission by Gallery Guichard fine art studio owners Andre Guichard (Kappa Alpha 1987) and his wife Frances Guichard (AKA). Scott provided Mr. Warren with 30 different photographs of Diggs. He also requested to see some of Diggs’ writings to get a sense of his character that he could incorporate into the painting. There were two existing portraits of Diggs, one at Diggs School #42 and the other at International Headquarters. Both portraits and most photographs feature Diggs as a mid- dle-aged man. For these reasons, Scott requested Mr. Warren capture Diggs as he appeared when he graduated from Indiana University to make this
portrait unique and portray his essence at this historic time and place. As the portrait was being developed, Scott requested Mr. Warren to outfit Diggs in the period’s attire and provided him with various samples of the Edward- ian-era men’s attire. Additionally, Scott suggested that Mr. Warren accent the background with the Indiana University campus landscape and feature Science Hall, where Diggs received most of his studies. Science Hall (now Lindley Hall) was built in 1902 and is still in use on the campus. Scott’s final sug- gestion was to place the fraternity’s original rendition of the Coat of Arms on Diggs’ lapel. Mr. Warren made a few modifications after preliminary sketches and painting drafts were
80 THE JOURNAL ♦ SUMMER 2023
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