Theodore Clement Steele

A June Idyll, 1887

oil on canvas

18 x 29

Gift of Mrs. William B. Wheelcock

Learn More

T. C. Steele was born in Gosport Indiana.  His family later moved to Waveland where Steele began taking art classes at age twelve.  By the time he was eighteen, Steele was teaching drawing and painting at Waveland Collegiate Institute. Steele moved to Indianapolis and cultivated a friendship with Herman Lieber, who became his patron.  He studied at the Indiana School of Art with its founder John Love.  Lieber raised the funds to send Steele and his family to Europe. Steele chose to go to Munich because it was less expensive than Paris and he could study with Frank Duveneck, a prominent Ohio painter.  When Steele returned to Indianapolis, he established an art school with William Forsyth.  He did portraits and landscapes, many of them dark and dramatic, in the style known as the Munich School.  When he began to explore the Indiana countryside, Steele turned almost completely to landscape painting, and his work became more colorful and gradually more impressionistic.  Steele emerged as the leader and spokesman for a group of Indiana artists known as The Hoosier Group, which included Indiana’s most important Impressionist painters, including William Forsyth, J. Ottis Adams, Otto Stark, and Richard Gruelle.  In 1902 and 1903, Steele toured the American West, painting in Oregon and around San Francisco.  In 1906, he settled in Brown County in a home that became known as the House of the Singing Winds.

A June Idyll was painted during Steele’s summer sojourn as a guest of Allen M. Fletcher, secretary-treasurer of the Indianapolis Natural Gas Company, at the Fletcher family home in Vermont.  The artist divided his summer work in Vermont between expansive views of the Green Mountains and a series of small forest interiors, several of which included the artist’s family.  In this painting Steele’s daughter Daisy is reading to her brother Shirley beneath a shade tree.  The tonal harmonies reflect the artist’s interest in French Barbizon landscapes.  Areas of strong sunlight peek through the dense forest, illuminating the rocks and the girl’s dress. Daisy’s bright red hat offers a dramatic dash of color amid the lush green grass.

Reference

William H. Gerdts.  Theodore Clement Steele: American Master of Light, New York: Chameleon Books, 1995. ASIN: B002J7NK4K