photo by Cindy Steele
“ Pergola in Early Spring” by T. C. Steele. Portrait of T. C. Steele by Wayman Adams.
Twenty-three years younger than Steele, Selma was devoted to the new household for“ the painter,” as she always referred to her husband, and she spent much time landscaping gardens on their property. Local women were engaged to help with the upkeep of the home.
The couple’ s love of music, art, and conversations was shared with the local people and artist friends alike. Their homestead was a curiosity to many who wondered at the lack of crops on the Steele’ s land. Mrs. Steele noticed her husband’ s daily focused dedication to his art. She ran the home efficiently and with her own distinct style so that visitors were hospitably received and her husband’ s painting would not be interrupted.
The hilltop breezes caught by the screening on the porch and doors gave the home its name: The House of the Singing Winds.
Friend and artist, Gustave Baumann, engraved a stone mantelpiece over the fireplace in the living room:“ Every morning I take off my hat to the beauty of the world.”
Assuming fulltime residency in Brown County in 1912, the Steeles were joined by other artists. Steele’ s reputation as an impressionist continued to rise and in 1913 he was elected as an associate artist to the National Academy of Design in New York. In 1922 Steele was the Indiana University’ s first artistin-residence. He and Selma rented a home in Bloomington but returned to their House of the Singing Wind in the summer. Over his career there were many honors and exhibitions of his work.
A heart attack weakened T. C. Steele in December 1925. Though he continued painting, he became ill the following early summer and died at home in Brown County on July 24, 1926. Hundreds attended a simple memorial at the House of the Singing Winds. The burial site of his cremains is at the bottom of the hill, with the epitaph reading,“ Beauty Outlives Everything.”
His widow recognized that T. C. Steele’ s artistic genius was the legacy
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July / August 2019 • Our Brown County 21