THE HOUSE OF THE SINGING WINDS: EN HOMAGE
Collector’ s Showcase 2025
October 4 – November 16
~ by Julia Pearson
Rita Spalding and C. W. Mundy. Actress Jill Trasker.
The 2026 centennial of the formation of the Brown County Art Gallery is being marked by the Collectors Showcase 2025 exhibit, The House of the Singing Winds: en Homage. It will take place October 4 through November 16 at the Gallery, One Artist Drive, Nashville.
A circle of Impressionist artists a century ago founded the Brown County Art Gallery shortly after the death of the painter Theodore Clement Steele. It is now the home of permanent collections and an exhibition space for 60 working artists.
Recognized as one of the most famous of the 20 th Century Hoosier Group of painters, Steele was born in Gosport, Indiana. A master with the brush, Steele received training at the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany. Upon returning to Indianapolis and throughout the 1890s, Steele devoted the winter months to painting formal oil portraits, and painted Indiana landscapes in the summer.
In 1907, Steele brought his young wife, Selma, to the Brown County woodlands between Nashville and Bloomington, near the tiny burg
28 Our Brown County • Sept./ Oct. 2025 of Belmont. Together they set up housekeeping and an art studio, while opening their lives to the schooled painters who followed them.
The Steeles’ home, known as The House of the Singing Winds, was the nucleus of the Brown County Art Colony. The house was filled with music and art, local people, and artist friends.
Steele’ s reputation as an Impressionist grew during this chapter of his career. In 1913 he was elected as an associate artist to the National Academy of Design in New York and was Indiana University’ s first artist-in-residence in 1922.
The Brown County Art Gallery Foundation recently engaged contemporary Indiana artists C. W. Mundy and Rita Spalding to paint on location over a period of three years at the T. C. Steele State