Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 21, 2017

Contact: Cate Whetzel, 812.988.2785, [email protected]

NASHVILLE, Ind. — The T.C. Steele State Historic Site will kick off its 2017 program series Sunday at Home on Sunday, March 26, from 2 to 4 p.m. with Women of Steele, a portrait display. The afternoon will also include a light reception. Women of Steele will be on view through June 11. The Sunday at Home series will occur on select Sundays throughout 2017.

The display includes portraits by Steele of his mother, Harriett Newell Evans Steele; his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Lakin Steele, known as Libbie; his daughter Margaret Steele Neubacher, known as Daisy; and his second wife, Selma Neubacher Steele. Portraits of Libbie and Daisy are on loan for the display, which will become a part of interpreter tours in the Large Studio. A small drawing of Daisy as a child, sketched by Steele, will also hang in the display.

“This is a chance for our visitors to meet the women who supported Steele and who made all of his work possible,” said Cate Whetzel, T.C. Steele Historic Site program developer. “Steele was a son, a husband and a father. He didn’t become one of the most famous and beloved painters in Indiana on his own.”

Other objects on display include Libbie Lakin Steele’s Impressions, an essay about the family’s life in Munich while Steele was an art student at the Royal Academy. Personal effects of Selma’s will be on view, including her hairbrush, mirror, one of her hats and hat pins and a selection of her gardening books and catalogs.

Members of the Indiana State Museum and the Friends of T.C. Steele will be admitted to the program free of charge. All other guests will be charged general admission to experience Women of Steele, which includes a tour of the historic buildings.

Women of Steele has been made possible with the support of descendants of T.C. Steele, the Brown County Art Gallery and the Indiana State Museum.

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T.C. Steele State Historic Site is located on Hwy 46 just west of Nashville in the heart of artistic Brown County. Part of the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, the site is where nature’s beauty meets the artist’s canvas. The home, studio and gardens of this noted Hoosier artist still provide inspiration today through site tours, outdoor painting competitions and artist-in-residence programs. For more information, call 812.988.2785 or visit indianamuseum.org/tcsteele.