b. 1847 d. 1926
Site Affiliation: T.C. Steele State Historic Site
Theodore Clement “T.C.” Steele, was born in Gosport, Indiana on September 11, 1847, and died at his home in Brown County on July 24, 1926. T.C. Steele, a noted Indiana painter of portraits and landscapes, studied at the Royal Academy of Munich (1880-1885) before returning home to Indiana, where he would found the Society of Western Artists and the Indiana School of Art that would become the John Herron Art Institute. In 1893 Steele and a group of four Indiana Impressionist landscape painters showed paintings at Chicago’s World’s Fair where they became known as “The Hoosier Group”. He was at the forefront of the state’s art movement and was inducted to the New York School of Design. In 1922 Steele became Indiana University’s first Artist-in-Residence, the “Honorary Professor of Painting”. Steele remains one of Indiana’s most honored artists.
Primary Medium: Painting
Primary Stylistic Term: German Realism, American Impressionism
HAHS Affiliations: Steele was married to artist, educator, and administrator, Selma Steele.
Fun Fact: T.C. Steele and his family were very interested in music! Steele played the flute, and as a young teenager he sang in traveling quartet (which included his soon-to-be first wife, Libbie Lakin) during the Civil War years. Steele’s daughter Daisy and son Shirley played the piano and cello, respectively, and Daisy Steele recounts her parents playing instruments together, and singing together, during her childhood.
Recommended Publications: The House of the Singing Winds: The Life and Work of T.C. Steele by Selma N. Steele, Theodore L. Steele, and Wilbur Peat (1966); Paint and Canvas: A Life of T.C. Steele by Rachel Berenson Perry (2012); T.C. Steele and the Society of Western Artists by Rachel Berenson Perry (2009)