First published by the Indiana Historical Society in 1966 and now available for the state s 2016 bicentennial, this detailed account of the life and work of one of Indiana s most-renowned artists, Theodore C. Steele, includes a new essay on the life of his second wife, Selma Neubacher Steele, by noted Hoosier art authority Rachel Berenson Perry.
This revised edition of what has become a classic work on the painter s life and career also includes approximately seventy-five Steele paintings from the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Indiana University Art Museum, and private collectors from around the state. These paintings, many of which have never been published, demonstrate the importance of Steele to the art world in his time and in ours.
In addition to Perry s essay on Selma Steele, the book includes the original text from the 1966 printing. In The Life, Theodore L. Steele provides a biographical sketch of his grandfather from his birth in Owen County, Indiana, in 1847 to his move to Brown County in 1907. Using T. C. Steele s journals, sketchbooks, and correspondence, the author describes the painter s early training and dedication, his period of European study, and his close relationship with his first wife, Mary Elizabeth (Libbie) Lakin Steele. The House of the Singing Winds by Selma Steele is a poetic portrait of the artist s Brown County period, which lasted from 1907 until his death in 1926. Former John Herron Art Museum director Wilbur D. Peat s critique of the painter s work concludes the volume.
T. C. Steele s appreciation of nature, combined with his intelligence and capacity for concentrated study, raised his works to an extraordinary level. This story of his life and work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is an indispensable chapter in the cultural history of Indiana, the Midwest, and the nation.
Finalist (Art), Foreword INDIE Book of the Year Award
Rachel Berenson Perry is Indiana State Museum and Historic Site s fine art curator emerita. While working there, she organized and curated all of the art exhibitions from 2003 through 2011. Perry also served as assistant curator at the T. C. Steele State Historic Site in Brown County, Indiana. She has written numerous articles for American Art Review and Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History, and her books include William J Forsyth: The Life and Work of an Indiana Artist (Indiana University Press, 2014);Painting Indiana III: Heritage of Place (Indiana University Press, 2013); Barry Gealt: Embracing Nature (Indiana University Press, 2012); Paint and Canvas: A Biography of T. C. Steele (Indiana Historical Society Press, 2012); T. C. Steele and the Society of Western Artists 1896 1914 (Indiana University Press, 2009); and Children from the Hills: The Life and Work of Ada Walter Shulz (Artist Colony Press, 2001).
