Akademiestraße 2-4, 80799 Munich, Germany
Steele was a student of the Royal Academy of Munich (now the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich) between 1880 1885.
Administration Building, 313 S Locust St, Greencastle, IN 46135, USA
When he was sixteen, Steele enrolled in Asbury College (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, Indiana.
Portrait of T. C. Steele by Jeffrey T. Larson.
Portrait of T. C. Steele.
Portrait of Theodore Clement Steele.
Theodore Clement Steele in his garden.
Young T. C. Steele.
107 S Indiana Ave, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
In 1922 Steele accepted his appointment as Indiana University’s first artist in residence.
Administration Building, 313 S Locust St, Greencastle, IN 46135, USA
When he was sixteen, Steele enrolled in Asbury College (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, Indiana.
Akademiestraße 2-4, 80799 Munich, Germany
Steele was a student of the Royal Academy of Munich (now the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich) between 1880 1885.
Mr. and Mrs. Steele.
Portrait of T. C. Steele by Jeffrey T. Larson.
Portrait of T. C. Steele.
Portrait of Theodore Clement Steele.
T. C. Steele.
Theodore Clement Steele in his garden.
Young T. C. Steele.
107 S Indiana Ave, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
In 1922 Steele accepted his appointment as Indiana University’s first artist in residence.
Steele was born in Owen County, Indiana, United States, on September 11, 1847. He was the eldest child of Samuel Hamilton and Harriett Newell Evans Steele. His father worked as a saddle maker and farmer. In the year 1852, his family moved to Waveland in Montgomery County, Indiana. The T.C. Steele Boyhood Home at Waveland was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
It was in Montgomery County that T. C. Steele developed his interest in art and made first steps in drawing. As a boy, Steele attended the Waveland Collegiate Institute (Waveland Academy). When he was sixteen, Steele continued his art training at Asbury College (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, Indiana. He had also studied for a short period of time in Chicago, Illinois, and Cincinnati, Ohio, before he finally returned to Indiana.
His friend and art patron, Herman Lieber, financially supported the family so that Steele could study at the Royal Academy of Munich (now the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich). In exchange for future paintings, thirteen of Steele’s friends and patrons pledged $100 each to finance Steele’s studies. In 1880 Steele sailed with his family to Europe, accompanied by fellow Hoosiers J. Ottis Adams, August Metzner, Carrie Wolf, and Samuel Richards. The group was joined by Hoosier artist William Forsyth two years later.
In addition to his training at the Royal Academy under the supervision of such artists as Gyula Benczúr and Ludwig Löfftz, Steele spent a lot of hours studying artworks of the Old Masters in Munich’s Alte Pinakothek galleries. At Steele’s request, his sponsors then extended their financial support and he managed to continue education in Munich for two more years. T. C. Steele also used money earned from painting copies of Old Masters to pay for several additional months before he finally returned to Indiana in 1885.
In Indianapolis, Steele and his family rented the Tinker mansion (Talbott Place). T. C. Steele had a studio downtown, where he could create his artworks and display them. However, he made a living primarily as a portrait painter and art teacher. Around 1886 the artist built a studio on the Tinker property, and the home, already an Indianapolis landmark, became a center for the local arts community.
T. C. Steele’s works showed a significant change in style in the late 1880s. In Steele’s early paintings were used mainly dark, drab colours and high contrasts. But during this period of time, his artworks gradually shifted toward a brighter, more vivid colours. The artist was particularly interested in depicting the beauty of nature through expressions of light and colour. T. C. Steele’s paintings incorporated both urban and rural scenes and depicted changes of season.
In addition to local exhibitions, Steele’s art was displayed outside of Indiana, including the Eighth Annual Exhibition of the prestigious Society of American Artists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1886.
In summers, Steele usually took his family to the country, where he painted mostly rural landscapes. The Muscatatuck River near Vernon was his favorite place to depict. On these expeditions he was frequently accompanied by fellow landscape artist William Forsyth. T. C. Steele also painted in Vermont and Tennessee.
The 1890s were a turning point in his career. In 1890 he published The Steele Portfolio. It contained twenty-five photogravure prints of his paintings, including his prize-winning student work from Munich, "The Boatman". In 1891 William Forsyth joined T. C. Steele, working as an instructor at the Indiana Art School, which Steele established in 1889. Steele continued to teach there until 1895, before he decided to dedicate himself entirely to painting.
The Art Association of Indianapolis sponsored the Exhibit of Summer Work by T. C. Steele, Richard B. Gruelle, William Forsyth, and Otto Stark, which took place on November 1894. This exhibition so impressed Hamlin Garland, an art critic and novelist, that he offered to have show it in Chicago. Sponsored by the Central Art Association, the Indiana exhibit, called Five Hoosier Painters, expanded to include artworks by Adams. This Chicago exhibition is credited with starting the careers of the Hoosier Group of Indiana painters.
During the 1890s, Steele painted landscapes during the warm months and returned to his studio during the cold ones to paint portraits. Moreover, he actively exhibited his works, delivered lectures, and also helped organize the Society of Western Artists, a group dedicated to supporting and exhibiting regional artists and their work. Steele later became the organization’s president.
T. C. Steele painted outdoors near Vernon, then moved on to Bloomington in Monroe County, Indiana, and Metamora in Franklin County, Indiana, where he created some of his best artworks. The area around Metamora was instrumental in the development of Hoosier landscape painting. Fellow landscape painters Adams, Forsyth, Stark and others joined Steele as he painted outdoors. In 1898 Steele and Adams purchased a house in Brookville, Indiana, so they could be closer to the area’s picturesque beauty. Their home was quiet and provided a place where the artists could work without interruption. The following year Steele became a member of the jury that selected American paintings for the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900, a world’s fair expected to attract millions of visitors.
In 1900 the Art Association of Indianapolis received a large donation from John Herron to establish a museum and art school in the city. The association chose Steele’s home in Indianapolis, the Tinker mansion, and purchased it from his landlord. As a result, T. C. Steele’s art studio became the first Herron School of Art. Steele occupied another home on East Saint Clair Street in Indianapolis. Portrait commissions still were a major source of income for Steele. Among his clients were poet James Whitcomb Riley, several Indiana governors, President Benjamin Harrison, and other prominent Hoosiers.
Steele and his daughter, Daisy, set off to the West Coast to visit relatives in Oregon and Redlands, California, in 1902. This trip inspired Steele to create more than a dozen exceptional pieces of art. He displayed several of his West Coast works in the Society of Western Artists’ Sixth Annual Exhibition. They were well received by art critics. Steele made another cross-country trip with his daughter in 1903. The following year the artist was invited to be a juror on the selection committee of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Four of his own paintings were selected for the exposition and an additional five paintings were shown in the Indiana Building. In Indianapolis, Steele became involved in plans for the Art Association’s new museum, serving as chair of the acquisitions committee. In 1905 the Tinker house was destroyed to make space for the Herron Art Institute. In 1906 Steele sold his share in The Hermitage at Brookville to Adams and moved back to Indianapolis.
Later he built a hilltop studio-home on 60 acres (24 hectares) of land one and a half miles south of Belmont, between Nashville and Bloomington, Indiana. Steele moved into the new residence, the House of the Singing Winds, in August 1907. Though the land wasn't suitable for agricultural purposes, it provided the artist with "beautiful picturesque woods and hills and valleys."
In 1922 he accepted his appointment as Indiana University’s first artist in residence. There, T. C. Steele kept a studio on the top floor of the University Library (now Franklin Hall), where he and his wife hosted visitors and students could watch him paint. Concurrently, Steele continued to display his artworks, including a major exhibition called the Hoosier Salon, which took place in Chicago and organized by The Daughters of Indiana.
In the early summer of 1926, Steele became seriously ill. He travelled to Indianapolis and Terre Haute to undergo observation and treatment. He returned to his home at the beginning of July, but passed away soon.
T. C. Steele was an innovator and leader in American Midwest painting. He is considered to be one of the most famous of Indiana's Hoosier Group painters. Besides, he's well-known as one of the organizers of the Society of Western Artists.
The Indiana State Library and Historical Bureau has erected two historical markers to celebrate Steele's achievements. The first marker, installed in 1992, honours the artist, along with his home and studio in Brown County, Indiana, while the other, installed in 2015, honours his contributions and his former Indianapolis residence, which became the site of the John Herron Art Institute.
T. C. Steele's paintings have appeared in a number of major exhibitions, such as the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893) in Chicago, Illinois; the Five Hoosier Painters exhibition (1894) in Chicago; the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904) in Saint Louis; the International Exhibit of Fine Arts (1910) in Buenos Aires, Argentina; etc.
His artworks are widely collected by museums and individuals. His paintings are held in such public collections as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Haan Mansion Museum of Indiana Art, the Benjamin Harrison Home (later known as the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site), the David Owsley Museum of Art Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana State Museum, and the Indiana University Art Museum in Bloomington, Indiana, among others.
Street Scene
An Indiana Road
The Brook in the Woods
Meridian Street, Thawing Weather
Evening, Poplars
November Morning
The Christ Child and the Infant St. John after Rubens
Talbott Place
The Poplars
Portrait of Daisy
Mysterious
Selma in the Garden
Brook in Woods
Road to Schleissheim
Pleasant Run
The Boatman
The House of the Singing Winds
Cumberland Mountains
A Bleak day
Albert G. Porter, Governor of Indiana
Gordon Hill
Haying Scene
The Grist Mill
At Noon Day
White water River. Brookville
Brookville
Flower Garden at Brookville
Portrait of James Whitcomb Riley
The Bloom of the Grape
Along the Creek
The Old Mills
Vernon Beeches
The Shades
Tinker Place
The Creek
House of the Singing Winds
Tennessee Scene
Evening Poplars and Roadway near Schleissheim
Still Life with Peonies
Hills of Vernon
June Glory
Monument in the Snow
Village Scene
Weekly Wash
Cows by the Stream
On the Oregon Coast
Village Scene
The Muscatatuck
September
On the Muscatatuck
In the Berry Field
Morning. The Sheep
Berry Picker
November's Harmony
Whitewater River
Winter Afternoon Old Munich
Peonies and Irises
The Ohio river from the College Campus, Honover
Canal, Schlessheim
Roan Mountain
Last Hour of the Day
Street Scene with Carriage
The Oaks of Vernon
Beech Trees
Flower Mart
Clam Diggers
Munich Haying
The Clam Diggers
Morning by the Stream
Summer Days at Vernon
Creek in Winter
Brookville
Whitewater Valley
Okemo Mountain, Ludlow, Vermont
In the Whitewater Valley near Metamora
A Corner in the Old Kitchen of the Mittenheim Cloister
Daisy by the River
Quotations: "It has seemed to me that the greatest of all arts is the art of living."
Steele was elected to an associate membership in New York’s National Academy of Design in 1913. He was also a founding member of the Society of Western Artists.
Steele married Mary Elizabeth (Libby) Lakin in 1870. Their son Rembrandt, or Brandt, was born in 1870 in Battle Creek, Michigan, and daughter Margaret (Daisy) was born in 1872. Another son, Shirley, was born in Indianapolis in 1879. Mary Lakin, who suffered from chronic rheumatoid arthritis and tuberculosis, passed away in 1899. Steele's daughter Daisy married Gustave Neubacher of Indianapolis in 1905.
T. C. Steele married Selma Laura Neubacher, an Indianapolis art educator and his son-in-law's younger sister, on August 9, 1907, in Indianapolis. T. C. and Selma, who was twenty-five years younger than Steele, had no common children. His second wife died on August 28, 1945.
Selma Neubacher Steele (1870-1945) was an educator and writer from Indiana.
Rembrandt Theodore Steele was a successful artist. He was known for his design and pottery in the Arts and Crafts style. The notable home he designed and built for his family still stands in the Woodruff Place neighborhood of Indianapolis.
