Theodore Clement Steele – Indiana's Master Impressionist from Munich to Brown County – Part Two

On the Road, 1909, T. C. Steele

To Seize the Beauty of Earth.

That T. C. Steele remained active and productive until the end of his life is indisputable. A February 25, 1926, Indianapolis News article about a then current exhibition in Bloomington at his Indiana University studio verifies his most recent batch of works,

“A special exhibition of winter landscapes painted from the window of his cottage (on campus) this winter by Prof. T. C. Steele...will be on display in the university studio next week. About twenty-five pictures will be shown for first time, including a number of autumn landscapes.

...Professor Steele has completed about fifteen pictures this winter, which season, he says, has been favorable for his work.”

One such work, possibly, is the painting The Bridge Over the Jordan River, 1925, included in the current Brown County Art Gallery show. The work is the latest in date of all the artworks presented in the current show, and the only painting from 1925.

It shows a winter scene with a stream and a few trees in the muted fogs of the season. Its colors are cool, almost moist, a lavender and gray, a soft green, and some warmer browns.  

The Bridge Over the Jordan River, 1925, T. C. Steele

(The exact view of the Jordan River, renamed Campus River in 2020, on the I. U. campus can be seen today in this image taken recently although in the spring or summer. The three trees most in the foreground have grown in size and survive the years.)

T. C. Steele view of Jordan River as it appears today
photo: https://williamscreekmgt.com/project/iu-campus-river-restoration/

In May 1926, just after the death of his fellow artist, and Hoosier Group member, Otto Stark on April 14, in Indianapolis at the age of 67, T. C. Steele was to have a final one-man exhibition. Held at the H. Lieber Company gallery in Indianapolis, the show was reviewed by Lucille Morehouse in The Indianapolis Star and an unnamed writer in The Indianapolis News in the first weeks of May.

from May 15, 1926 Indianapolis Star

The News article appeared first on May 8, and reads, in part,

“Not for some time has there been hung a group of paintings containing such variations of emotions, both gentle and grim, as are evidenced in the nineteen canvases by Theodore C. Steele on exhibition in the H. Lieber Company gallery. Each picture holds before the spectator a mood which expresses itself with definite intent. The artist was not satisfied with the portrayal of a few of these moods. He has swept with his brush a wide horizon and with quiet power has captured in paint a throbbing individuality.

The veteran artist, now in his seventy-ninth year, seemingly has poured into this group of pictures the accumulated knowledge  and skill acquired in a long apprenticeship to the beautiful.”

The writer then describes the span of the creation for the paintings, and their overall effect on the viewer,

“...the majority of the paintings are of recent creation. Twelve were painted in 1925, one in 1926, and of the remaining six, four are undated, one completed in 1923 and the other in 1912. The pictures give the impression that the artists is at peace with himself and the world and that he has launched himself  into a new and vital phase of production.”

The writer describes several of the works included, and also quotes the artist from a recent talk on art appreciation at the Fort Wayne Art School one year before. Steele said, in part,

“I often speak of appreciation both of nature and art, as it is the art of seeing beautifully. There is such an art. It is an attitude of mind. It is not a matter of intellect so much as of sensibility, feeling rather than thought. A work of art is not created in cold blood. There must be the fire of emotion to warm the life of art, and then not a literal representation, but a much greater thing. It is the scene plus the emotion of the artist. Happy is the painter if he can convey to the observer the joy he feels in creation.  To him the beauty of earth is real. He is happy if he can seize and make permanent that which passes so quickly.”

The writer concludes with brief descriptions of some of the paintings, including Autumn Gold, Across Country, From Dewar's Hill and The Big Oak, writing that all the works possess great decorative charm, but something more,

“Unlike most decorative art...they appeal to more than the senses. There is present (in the paintings) poetry of thought as well as beauty of color and simple balance of design.”

from the May 8, 1926, Indianapolis News

In her column the next day in The Indianapolis Star on May 9, Lucille Morehouse contrasts Steele's most recent paintings, which predominate the exhibit, with his earlier Brown County style,

“(The latest works)...have a serenity and calm that impress us with the meaning of a long life  spent in the pursuit of beauty. Running through all there is, too, the same gentle dignity that has always marked Mr. Steele's work. In the color there is a mellow richness of tone that speaks of long years of loving companionship with brush and palette. A feeling of wide, open spaces, where one looks far across the fields and into the sky high overhead, is the result of a skillful handling of atmospheric effects and of perspective...”

Morehouse also comments on several works individually while naming others in the show including Stormy Weather – Salt Creek Valley, Winter Afternoon – Jordan Field, Wild Roses and Larkspur, On Axtell Road and In June.

In the same column, Morehouse writes that T. C. Steele recently visited the Indianapolis exhibit of Richmond-area painter, John Elwood Bundy at the Fine Arts Studio on the top floor of the Pierce Building in the city. 

Her remarks document that Steele, in his old age, in addition to his considerable productive prowess, possessed a continuing curiosity in the overall art world, and a sympathetic and generous nature,

“T. C. Steele paid a visit to the gallery last Tuesday and expressed his admiration for the landscape with patches of snow, entitled Winter Haze also for On the Old Homestead the canvas that won the ...Foulke prize... at Richmond.”  

Lucille Morehouse was also compelled to ask a question in her column. A question that arose as a result of T. C. Steele's always evolving art. She is pondering the changes she has observed in the most two recent exhibits as compared to the past few years,

“The paintings that represented Mr. Steele in the Hoosier Salon earlier in the spring, seemed to emphasize a different phase of his art than the one which we have been familiar for several years; and a large number of the pictures now on display at Lieber's...(share the same characteristics as those in the Hoosier Salon). Whether it means an entirely new period of his art, or is reminiscent of earlier work before he began to paint in Brown County, might be best decided by a retrospective exhibition. And that raises the question, why not have a retrospective exhibition of the art of T. C. Steele?” 

  

True Blue.

Days before T. C. Steele was to die, he was mentioned in what would be his last Indianapolis newspaper coverage of his life.  In the July 18, 1926, Indianapolis Star, in the recurring column From Down in the Hills o' Brown County by Frank M. Hohenberger, T. C. Steele is quoted from the same Fort Wayne Art School address on art appreciation the previous fall mentioned above. 

Morning, 1917, T. C. Steele

As Hohenberger introduced, 'T. C. Steele, dean of Indiana artists, said,'

“Man is by nature a materialist – an artist is one who can see through this materialism and discover the spirit of things.”

Hohenberger continued his summary of the talk, which included a startling, and turns out, accurate  prediction by Steele,

“Mr. Steele predicted that the United States would soon become the art center of the world, saying this country already excelled in contemporary architecture.” 

And the final words in the column, and about T. C. Steele while he was still living,

“He expressed approval of the movement to teach art in the school, saying he believed every child has an inherent sense of beauty which may be drawn out under proper tutelage.”

Less than a week later, the same paper, on page one above the fold, would be carrying the sad news of the death of T. C. Steele at age 79,

“In his home among the hills of Brown County, the House of the Singing Winds, Theodore Clement Steele, honorary professor of painting at Indiana University and one of the leading Hoosier artists, died at 8:30 o'clock (last night).” 

July 25, 1926 Indianapolis Star

The obituary and tribute continued over two pages of the paper and included a detailed biography and the reactions of fellow artists.

Just a day later, news of his burial service and internment at his Brown County Singing Winds property were reported. Lucille Morehouse provides a long eulogy in her column in The Star on July 26. 

About his life's work in painting. She writes,

“He was faithful always to nature, to our native hills and valleys, with their woodlands and meadows and winding streams. He would never twist out of shape a bit of landscape for the sake of decorative pattern. In fact he seldom cared to make his landscapes compositions of the so-called decorative type, other than being true to nature.”

About his skies, Morehouse writes,

“Tragic skies, with great sweeping cloud masses, made little appeal to his brush. In an occasional painting one finds the sky to be almost unbelievably blue, but to those who know Brown County year in and year out, this is true to nature.”

The House of the Singing Winds, Winter Afternoon, 1922, T. C. Steele

 About Steele's distances and the atmosphere in his paintings, and the use of figures, she observes,

“The mists that hang over distant hills were seen by Mr. Steele in predominant violet tones... 

Always there is a fine feeling for light and atmosphere in Steele's pictures. In all seasons and at all hours of day it is a play of light through atmosphere that gives vibrancy and beauty to his landscapes.

Not often did he introduce figures into his landscape compositions. Occasionally there are groups of cattle that stray through the wood pastures...

Mr. Steele was fond of wide, open spaces. One never has the feeling of being shut in among the hills; instead, there is always the feeling of freedom as one looks out or across or up...”

 

detail of The Whitewater, 1904, T. C. Steele

The Greater Thing.

One can see in the current show at Brown County Art Gallery, that 'greater thing' T. C. Steele was speaking about –  the feeling rather than thought, the fire of emotion, the warmness of life and the joy.   

Steele's soul must have quivered when he stumbled upon certain scenes of beauty at particular moments of light and atmosphere, bathed in the striking colors of nature at particular fine moments.  Those certain scenes live and breath yet, on the walls in this exhibit. 

There is a darkness and mystery, a chill, in the early picture The Rocky Stream, 1884. A brooding hope in After the Rain, 1890, with its open, albeit muddy, road and green fields beneath roiling gray storm clouds with just a bit of lightening sky.

Winter Scene (Chicago River), 1900, T. C. Steele

Around the time of the death of his first wife, a somber poetry pervades works such as A Quiet Forest  and Winter Scene (Chicago River), both 1900. 

The Forest shows a foggy morning in winter devoid of  most color, in a meadow clearing in the woods amid a stand of sycamore. The waning green of weeds, the leaching red/brown of beech tree leaves seem wrapped in a blanket of winter gray of both sky and receding hillside. 

A similar fog persists in the nautical Chicago River scene, but with a preponderance of sky and water, it refracts of lilac blue hue overall, an interplay of the misty atmosphere, the emission of smoke from the boat's stack and the play of sky on water's surface. A somber solitude is felt in these paintings.

With the new century, and several changes in scenery, one can sense a new joy in T. C. Steele. His paintings shimmer and vibrate with color and radiate light to dizzying effect. 

Just three such examples of the many in the show from this euphoric period of about ten years are Rancho Cucamonga, 1902, The Oregon Coast, 1903 and Brookville From Across the River, 1905. 

It is almost as if Steele bottled the West Coast and brought it back with him after his journey. But in truth, he had already seen such light, in Indiana, before the trip, as evidenced by such works as Brookville and Brookville Landscape, Sycamores, both 1901. 

 

Brookville Landscape, Sycamores, 1901, T. C. Steele

Perhaps Steele is best known for the Brown County scenes he painted in the last decades of his life. The exhibit has many examples of several sub-genres of work he produced during those years. Autumn and winter scenes, of course, in stunning pictures such as On the Road, 1909 (top of page), Autumn in Brown County, 1914 and The House of the Singing Winds, Winter Afternoon, 1922.  

Floral Still Life, 1921, T. C. Steele

High summer scenes and garden and flower pictures are also plentiful as depicted in Country Road in Summer, 1914, Garden's Bounty, 1915 and Child with Flowers, 1918.  

Of particular interest in the show, and only possible in a major retrospective of such number and quality of works, the viewer can begin to see the working methods of the artist as evidenced in both spontaneous preparatory works and later, larger versions of a same or similar scenes. 

There are at least three pairs of such works included in the Brown County show.

Afternoon at the Ford, 1898, T. C. Steele

On the Whitewater Sands, 1897, and Afternoon at the Ford, 1898, present a nearly identical view of the Whitewater River near Brookville, Indiana. It even seems nearly the same time of year that is painted as the distant hills in both pictures possess nearly the same colors. The earlier piece is the smaller and the sketchier of the two. It has an overall diffuse effect and lacks any particular highlight or splash of light and dark. The larger piece possesses more drama, more color, more reflection on the water and more focus for the eye.  

The Grist Mill and The Old Mill, both 1901, each present the same building on a sunny day, but this time from slightly different angles. The smaller piece again appears the more spontaneous sketch of the scene, with the larger work being more thought out, composed and possessing addition areas for the eye to focus as it moves around the larger canvas.  

And finally, the earliest pair, both named September, both created in 1892. 

September, 1892, T. C. Steele
the smaller work

Again the compositions and dimensions of the scene are almost identically proportioned between the works. Even the cloud formations have many shared features perhaps indicative of a single view of the scene that was later perhaps enlarged, or edited or elaborated upon. 

Whether a true blue rendition of a real scene, or one infused with the essence of some greater thing, the larger work appears born of destiny and would be exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair the next year. 

There is something about this painting that is magical. Reproductions do not do it justice. A combination of bravura handling of the paint, a novelty of soft color combinations amazingly balanced and a pleasing decorative design. Steele achieves a dreamy peaceful harmony born of a direct sketch from nature.

Upon viewing this wonderful show, one sees the unbridled energy of a master at work. The record of his swift brush, from sketch to masterpiece.

A wily, seasoned virtuoso, for whom no holds were barred in his search for the spirit of things.

September, 1892, T. C. Steele
was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893

Mark Diekhoff, August 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

Theodore Clement Steele – Indiana's Master Impressionist from Munich to Brown County – Part One

Over the Hill, 1914, T. C. Steele
in both 1926 and 2026 memorial exhibits 

 

Apex at the Center.

One hundred years ago, in 1926, a memorial exhibit for an original Indiana art legend and founding Hoosier Group painter Theodore Clement (T.C.) Steele occurred in the winter months just past his summer death that year. The John Herron Institute of Art in Indianapolis hosted the event on that somber occasion so long ago.

To mark the centennial of his death, and that original career-spanning show of his work, the largest memorial exhibit of T. C. Steele's work since that time is now at the Brown County Art Gallery in Nashville, Indiana.  

Theodore Clement Steele – Indiana's Master Impressionist from Munich to Brown County is on view from July 18 through September 21, 2026, sponsored by Bob and Barbara Stevens.

Seventy works in total make up this blockbuster of a show of important works.  

It contains works created, first, as a young student of art in rural, small town Indiana, then through his Munich, Germany studies period. Later, his long portraiture phase and works upon returning to Indiana and living in Indianapolis. 

And finally, the impressionist works, for which he is most known and revered, created in Brookville and southeast Indiana around the turn of the last century and finally in Brown County until his death there in July, 1926.

To recognize with certainty Steele's standing as a foundational and pivotal figure in Indiana's art history, one need only attend the show and examine the numerous works he created over this span of about fifty years. The works really say it all and speak for Steele – his talent, his hard work, his vision and his singularity.  

The exhibition is not to be missed. It is an extraordinary survey of great works, among his best. The show contains an large number of very large, salon-sized works, created for the prestigious art exhibits of his day.

Ambitious pieces glowing with light and color, many with esteemed exhibition histories. A scattering of smaller, dark and turbulent studies of brooding weather or fog. 

Each painting tells a tale or sings a song, with a repeating chorus of an overwhelmingly beautiful, or beautifully overwhelming, natural world.

Too many wonderful things to take in all at once. The exhibition almost demands repeat visits.

Meridian Street, Thawing Weather, 1887, T. C. Steele
exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1888 and
current Brown County Art Gallery exhibit

Aside the individual story of each picture, taken as a whole, they speak of Steele's eye for transcendent beauty, but also his enlivened soul. 

His paintings are stirring, you feel them. They evoke emotion. They record a virtuosity of the brush in his hand, as trembling as the wind, as scattered as the light and air, as centered and firm as the earth beneath his feet. One can sense the skill of his knowing glance, the speed of his decisions at the easel. 

A close look at his brushwork must be seen to be believed. Random splashes of contrasting color, or stray trickles straight from the tube, are lost in the tumult of a nature released before his eyes and then swiftly reorganized on his canvas for us to see.

Standing before his works, one experience his colors, our colors, our familiar Indiana. And looking at his dashing strokes, you feel his delight and joy and it becomes your joy as well.

No change in the weather or season was too fleeting or minute to elude his keen observation and deft handling of paint. 

Altogether, he paints a symphony as grand as Beethoven. And in this monumental exhibit, a  record of a life's work second to none in the history of our state.

His history as an artist in Indiana perhaps heralded the end of the beginning of the pioneer days and styles of earlier artists, and the beginning of his own art, a blending of European innovations with the light and color unique to our region. 

T. C. Steele would affect the appreciation of art in our state.  He would have a founding influence on not only a region's art, western art as it was called at the time, but also art education in Indianapolis. 

His presence and talent would be the  formative lifeblood of the entire Brown County Art scene. His artworks and his noble example inspired those around him in life, and have sparked generations of artists since his passing.  

To round out our understanding of the man, T. C. Steele, the context of a career so overwhelming in its thorough presentation in the show, we can also look to the last few years of his life, the end of the beginning of the Indiana art we all know today.

Under a Brilliant Sky, 1915, T. C. Steele
in current Brown County Art Gallery exhibit

Proven by His Pictures.

On Memorial Day 1920, Indianapolis Star art writer, Lucille E. Morehouse, described her journey and visit to T. C. Steele's home and studio in Brown County, Indiana. Some of her picturesque remarks about the memorable day are as follows,

“It was blue skies overhead, the fresh green of May-time on the hill and meadow, and joy in the heart of each occupant of the little motor omnibus that sped along the hill road from Bloomington to Belmont...to a range of hills where you go up and up to the highest hill of all, where you follow the road along thickly-wooded  sloping sides and then follow the curve around a level stretch until you suddenly lift  up and astonished eye to an unexpected upward slope, to a flower-crowned summit  and the House of the Singing Winds.

...It was my pleasure to spend a few days at the House of the Singing winds last October. The place was taking on the color of autumn – that color which Mr. Steele has painted into so many pictures. The beauty of it then brought great delight and invigoration. But now – oh, what joy to be there at Iris time! In the time of the blooming of the rose and purple columbines!

...Mrs. Steele has planned and planted with such thoughtful care that the tints and shades afford as lovely harmonies and as pleasing contrasts as do the color tones on the canvas of the artist. It seemed as if all the iris in the land had opened its buds on either side of the driveway from the front entrance – wonderful clear blue blossoms waving like silken banners from their tall stalks; and there were velvety deep purple ones, and rich yellow and maroon, and deep cream, and pale lavender...”

Morehouse is quoted at length to provide an eyewitness account to the beauty to be seen and the joy to be felt at Steele's Brown County house and studio at the time. It is the exact same iris season, just one year earlier, that Steele painted, that same flowered driveway, in a wonderful canvas that is included in the current Brown County Art Gallery show – The Iris Road, 1919. 

The Iris Road, 1919, T. C Steele
Brown County Art Gallery postcard, 2026

The painting was chosen for the postcard and catalog of works that accompany the current Brown County Art Gallery Exhibit. 

As Steele painted, and as Morehouse described, the work shows an uplifting, curving drive through cascades of iris on either side, blooming in those creams and yellows and maroons and purples.  

In the same article, Morehouse describes another nearby scene captured by Steele in his paintings, one such magnificent example appearing in the current Brown County show,

“Adolph Shulz, whose studio is at Nashville, led a short walk through an uncleared part of the estate, the path leading down to the little stream in the ravine which has suggested compositions for several well-known winter landscapes that have been frequently exhibited.”

Morehouse may have been indeed been thinking of the large work, Winter Sunlight, 1912, created in the first year of Steele's full-time residency at his Singing Winds Belmont property. The piece was widely exhibited in its day, at the Cincinnati Art Museum, the annual Society of Western Artists exhibit, the John Herron Art Institute and in Richmond, Indiana.  

Winter Sunlight, 1912, T. C. Steele

This painting was also seen in the original Steele memorial show in Indianapolis at Herron Institute, as an Indianapolis News article on December 4, 1926, attests with its accompanying photograph.

Mystery of the Hill Country.

Lucille Morehouse describes a painting by Steele, perhaps much in the same mysterious style of a prize winning work that included in the current show. It was a painting called From the Hilltop that was exhibited in the 19th Indiana Artists exhibition at the Herron Institute in late winter of 1926. Her March 6, Indianapolis Star article describes the work, 

“From the Hilltop contains the misty poetry of the hill country. A tree-clad and swiftly sloping foreground bears away toward faint and distant ridges. Mr. Steele has sacrificed color for the veiled and gentle beauty of his surroundings”

That same veiled and misty poetry is seen in the large prize-winning canvas, The Hill Country, 1913, which was also on display that late winter of 1926, but in Chicago, at the 2nd Hoosier Salon exhibit. Shown there, as The Hill Country –  Brown County, it won the Best Indiana Landscape by an Indiana Resident and a $200 prize in that show. Its image, title and winning ways are documented in the March 8, 1926 Indianapolis News.    

The Hill Country, 1913, T. C. Steele
widely exhibited from 1914 through 1926

The Hill Country presents a similar muted and ever so slightly stylized and modern approach to landscape that stands apart in the current show. There is a dreamy handling to the background that seems a subtle nod to if not expressionism, then at least symbolism, as practiced by younger local artists of the time such as Dorothy Morlan and Clifton Wheeler. 

Fine detail in the foreground and the haze of suggested space toward the back. Perhaps there was a wildfire or a burning going on the area on that sunny day, but whatever the case, or whatever Steele's reason, the resulting picture is stunning.

A painting by Steele of a similar subject but clearly a separate and distinct work, in the Indiana State Museum collection, was included in the 2024 exhibition Stories of the Salon that celebrated the 100th year of the Hoosier Salon. 

That exhibition showed a painting it claimed to be The Hill Country, a winner at the 2nd Hoosier Salon. However, the painting exhibited in 1926 in Chicago, and shown in The Indianapolis News that year, and now on display at the Brown County Art Gallery, is not the same painting that was in the State Museum show in 2024. 

The Hill Country (?), T. C. Steele
was exhibited in Stories of the Salon, 2024, Indiana State Museum

As Steele had only one painting called The Hill Country in 1926 at the Hoosier Salon, according to the reference book Grand Tradition (aka 'the green book,' by Newton and Weiss, that documents the Hoosier Salon from 1925 – 1990), we must conclude that both the State Museum piece and the current Brown County Art Gallery piece cannot both be the 1926 prize winner.  

Part Two will discuss the discernible periods of Steele's long career and ponder his working methods in examination of the many works included in the current Brown County Art Gallery show, Theodore Clement Steele – Indiana's Master Impressionist from Munich to Brown County.

Mark Diekhoff, July 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

The Epic Dramas of Artist Elmer Taflinger – Act Four

A Gallery By Any Other Name.

The November 11, 1933 Indianapolis Star introduced a new gallery to the Indianapolis art scene. It was a gallery to play a small, but not insignificant, part in the Elmer Taflinger drama. Lucille Morehouse explains in her column that day,

“An exhibition of William Forsyth has been selected to open the newly established art gallery on Monument circle that is to be conducted in connection with the Lyman Brothers art store. Damian Lyman and Carl Lyman, sons of members of the original art firm, are co-directors of the gallery, which has been opened on the fourth floor, over the store. The fact that the room was used as a studio by T. C. Steele, many years ago, seems to dedicate it, in an endearing way, as a gallery in which to display Indiana art.

The dignified and gentle nature of the artist who had his studio in the same room in the early days of Indianapolis seems, in some indefinable way, in an outstanding feature of the room, an early fireplace whose mantel of classic design suggests a stateliness and elegance of an earlier period.

The fireplace, it might be said, is apt to give a permanent name to Lyman's new gallery. 'The Fireplace gallery' has been suggested as a name by Elmer Taflinger. And it seems especially appropriate.”

Indeed Taf's suggestion of a name would stick, and within a few weeks time he would displaying his first one-man show at Lyman's Fireplace Gallery. Again, always the intrepid reporter, Lucille Morehouse provides the coverage in her In the World of Art  column in The Star on January 14, 1934,

“The one-man show of fifty-seven drawings by Elmer E. Taflinger at Lyman's Fireplace Gallery on Monument circle enters its second and final week tomorrow. This statement of itself should be enough to crowd the gallery throughout the entire week. But when it is said that each one of the drawings was selected by a different person, as a means of assembling the exhibit, the show takes on additional interest. When these selections were made, chiefly by artists, students and models, although the list also includes names of Indianapolis architects, photographers, sign painters, lawyers, insurance men, laboratory dentists and others who from time to time visited the studio, there were no price marks to add their silent influence on the selection.”

Taflinger explained to Morehouse that he had preserved about 200 drawings in total from which to choose the exhibit. Most of those 200 produced during the prior five years, although a grand total  of between 5,000 to 6,000 had been made. The vast majority of the larger number have been lost due to wear and tear over the many years of running his school.

Morehouse describes a few selections in the show as follows,

“Clifton Wheeler choice of a feminine nude, seated, in charcoal, is one of the best all round drawings of the nude. Because it is a more difficult pose with more problems of foreshortening, the reclining male figure, also in charcoal, selected by Paul Jones, would probably be placed first as a skillful accomplishment in study of the nude.

Theodore Steele, called Ted by his friends, son of...Brandt...and grandson of T. C. Steele...selected a drawing in sanguine of an old man with a humped back. Cornet Wood selected a sanguine drawing, two figures, a boy and a girl, wearing everyday clothes and resting on a divan.

Wallace Richards selected a delicately penciled nude group on a gold background. Jean Messick's choice is an inspirational figure, a Juno type of woman.”

Morehouse described the her overall impression when entering the gallery room filled with Taflinger's work,

“The sense of color is so very definite as one enters the gallery that it takes a second look to bring a realization that the work is largely in black and white. Of course there is a generous sprinkling of pastel drawing – gloriously colorful, never gay an flashing, but with a glowing brilliancy and satisfying contrast and depth of tone.” 

It seems appropriate that Taflinger's first solo show would be of the drawing studies that were part and parcel to his teaching methods and his art school. It is unclear how many paintings of the Green Goddess or My Body is Weary variety that he had produced, or how often, to that point I his career. His specialty was life drawing, almost exclusively, rather than landscape, or still life. He was certainly able to whip out figure painting and portraits, as was seen in his flash painting duo-portrait performance at the state fair the prior year.  But again, figure drawings would be his bread and butter. 

Taflinger possessed a looming and larger ambition. The creation of a mural of his own.  Perhaps the lingering sting of the Thomas Hart Benton matter, or maybe his own grandiose impulses would propel him toward its impending creation. Maybe Taf's first thoughts on the project were more about what it ought not be, as opposed to a clear idea of what it would be. The March 21, 1936, Indianapolis Times sheds light on his thoughts on the regionalist and social realist Benton proteges at the time, when it reports, “Elmer Taflinger calls the Roosevelt mural painters the Depressionists.” It can be inferred that Taflinger's mocking quip is aimed at artists working with the government's Section of Fine Arts program to place art work in federal buildings, most notable post offices.  

Social realism would not be his goal, apparently, as he planned a more class-neutral work of more timeless and universal appeal.  His plans would evolve and coalesce into a tripartite series of large canvases, designed to hang snugly side by side, carefully drawn, and balanced beautifully in color and tone.

Utilizing a similar broad and collaborative input, as he did for selections for the Lyman show, Taflinger would again amass a list of fanboy favorites, this time from a survey of science experts, for inclusion in an encyclopedic Rosetta Stone, his mural of mind, man and nature. The project would capture his attention and harness his creative talents in the years to come. 

Apotheosis of Science by Elmer Taflinger, central panel
appearing in Science Monthly, 1940

Taflinger's Vitruvian Show-Stopper.

The finished mural, Apotheosis of Science, was complete and ready for its debut in the fall of 1939. The Star art writer, Lucille Morehouse, covered the unveiling with her long an thorough review on September 21,

“The painting framed as three panels, is in reality one continuous design, executed in oils on canvas...”

The overall subject matter of the mural can be simplified to say that it contains a central symbolic figure amid an array of many secondary human figures, animals and plants that represent a broad swath of natural and scientific creation and classification. Morehouse goes into more detail regarding the works appearance and design, 

“In the figure groups the color is kept rich and dark. But in the design...concerned with the lower animals and the plants...the color is light-toned and luminous....

...the artist...constructed his design on the Greek basis of the circle and the square. And it was upon this basis of geometrical lines that the whole composition was worked out with mathematical precision.”

Morehouse first elaborates on the stunning central figure of the composition, Taflinger's take on Vitruvian Man. The four-legged, four-armed man thus becomes a basis for design and proportion for the entire work as Taflinger utilizes the knowledge of the Greeks and as immortalized by Leonardo da Vince. Taflinger's universal man has three faces, if not three heads entirely, representing the anthropological divide of race among human beings. About the three-faced head, Morehouse writes,

“There need be no explanation...to see that the central and larger head is a carefully painted portrait of Leonardo da Vinci...well along in years, with piercing eyes beneath shaggy brows and with long hair and beard.”

The central placement of da Vinci, as Morehouse quotes Taflinger, is because “he holds his place as the outstanding man of all time.”

A latent, perhaps coincidental, misogyny in the work is observed by Morehouse when she notes that nary a woman is included in the plethora of scientific notables portrayed in the mural. Taflinger and his brother-in-law, Robert L. Black, the Manual High School science teacher who commissioned the mural for his classroom, worked together on the project. Taflinger created and executed the design and painting, while Black, in the early days of preparation and research, submitted a questionnaire to over 100 of the country's eminent scientists for their input as to who should be included in the work. Perhaps the intention was to solicit a wide range of suggestions, but the male echo chamber that sought and suggested names, came up empty on the feminine, whether mythological, historical or contemporary.   

The Indianapolis News on September 23 also provides a review of Apotheosis of Science, less detailed and more as a summary of essential features,

“The Apotheosis of Science, the latest mural of Elmer Taflinger, was hung today in the biology classroom of Robert Lovell Black, for whom it was painted, at Emmerich Manual Training High School. The mural, 21 x 5 feet in size, has attracted attention in the field of art and science which the artist has combined in the symbolical presentation of the foremost scientists of all ages.

Five years of research and study went into the making of the mural, with more than 100 scientists being consulted in selection of the figures in the composition.

Frames as three panels, the painting is one continuous design. In the central panel, the complete classification of plants and animals are represented. The panels on each side  of the central are grouped with outstanding men of success.” 

Lucille Morehouse writes a second major article on Apotheosis... with a summary of a long and detailed interview with Taflinger in his studio where he offers a minutia of details regarding the subject matter, design and creation of the piece.  Included this Star piece dated September 24, is a photograph of Taflinger painting on the canvas, on what appears to be the left of the three panels.

An article penned by Robert L. Black would appear in The Scientific Monthly magazine in February of 1940. The article contains photographs of all three panels of the mural. The most cohesive explanation of the mural's composition and intentions are provided in the article, when Black writes, in part,

“The center panel portrays  representative plants and animals of each of the main classes...the center portion of the central panel contains four Greek scientists of the ancient world, two on either side, each symbolical of one of the four ancient elements, fire water, earth and air. They are placed in defensive positions, guarding life...

In the side panels are shown forty-eight of the great scientists of all ages...and arranged according to their field of work rather than the period in which they lived. The men in the left panel  were interested in living things...botany, zoology...genetics and medicine...while those on the right panel dealt mainly with pure science...mathematics, physics, astronomy and chemistry.

Each scientist has reached a summit...and is portrayed as standing on a mountain top...each...holds in his hand a symbol of his accomplishment.

The foreground of the picture  shows the remains of great periods of civilization, which have risen and fallen while the search for truth...has continued...”

  

The Black article is also useful in that it provides a complete list of the scientific figures included in the work.

Apotheosis of Science was to gain notoriety as it began a tour of cities in the eastern U.S. in the fall of 1940 and spring of 1941. The mural was displayed at scientific conferences held in Philadelphia and New York, as reported in The Indianapolis Star at the time. 

In his old age, Taflinger was to relay the subsequent history of the mural to Indianapolis News writer 

Marion Garmel. In her December 18, 1974 article, she writes,

“The Apotheosis of Science...has hung in Manual and Shortridge High Schools, been on display in the Museum of Arts and Science at Rockefeller Center in New York, and now hangs on one of the gigantic walls of Taflinger's carriage house studio.”

And that is the story of Taflinger's revenge, his Apotheosis...

A  broad salvo of a summation. A declaration of riposte and rebuttal. A crucible of wonder and riddles.

 

A mural of his own.

Wasted Talent or Wonder Years?

The war years and-post war decade, for Elmer Taflinger, were filled with an array of activity memorialized in the press. Taflinger's PR machine would not stop, nor would it slow, even as his production of fine art did.  In this period, Taflinger, the man of art usually played second fiddle to Ol' Taf the trickster, the raconteur, the sooth-seer or the odd ball.

Elmer Taflinger creating pastel portrait of DePauw coed
source The Indianapolis Star

In January and February of 1945, as the war in Europe was grinding toward a close, Elmer Taflinger made the papers by participating in an art event that seemed a riff off his earlier stunt of painting the winning state fair dress-making beauty (and the prize calf) of a few years prior. As reported in the January 3, 1945, South Bend Tribune,

 

“Five prominent Hoosier artists will come to DePauw university Saturday to choose the most pulchritudinous of DePauw's campus and paint a coed of their choice, it was announced ...by Prof. A. Reid Winsey, head of the art department...

DePauw beauty winners will have their photographs and pictures of the artist' portraits published in the 1945 Mirage, student yearbook...”

A few weeks later on February 16, in The Indianapolis Star, a photograph appeared showing Taflinger at work at his easel, painting a pastel portrait of his chosen coed, junior Miss Helen Davidson, of Kirkwood, Missouri.  The photograph also notes the other participating artists as Earl Beyer, Randolph Coats, Ruth Pratt Bobbs and Edmund Brucker. 

On the same day, in the same paper, there was an article about a pageant in honor of the 50-Year anniversary of Emmerich Manual Training High School. The gala would include dining, dancing, a double-header basketball game, and music including a special march, Our Golden Heritage, written by Charles Henzie, the manual band director.

The article referenced an art exhibit, as part of the festivities, to include both former and current artists and art students, and highlighted the recollections of former student Elmer Taflinger,

“Elmer Taflinger, local artist and mural painter, is one of those represented in the exhibit. Taflinger 

wanted to study art, so he enrolled in one art class for a double period, and one cooking class – also a double period – to keep the record straight – and slipped away from pans to pencils so that he could spend four hours a day  with the master (presumably the late Otto Stark, of Hoosier Group fame and former Manual art instructor).  

In the days surrounding this event, Taflinger was mentioned in another article and pictured in a photograph of related interest in the same newspaper. On February 17, he was pictured in a photographed with a pretty Manual senior art student, Miss Thelma Williams, installing the the portrait of Otto Stark in the anniversary exhibit. And on February 19, an article reported that Taflinger was to paint a portrait of the late Milo Stuart, one of three principals in the school's history. The first principal, Charles Emmerich, was painted by T. C. Steele and the second principal, E. H. Kemper McComb, was painted by Marie Goth. It is noted that all three painters were Manual graduates.    

During the same period, Taflinger was a regular source of gee-whiz material to Indianapolis Star columnist, Lowell Nussbaum, and his The Things I Hear! column. A torrent of offbeat, human interest and comic material was most certainly required for the sustenance of a daily column by the writer. Taflinger was such a source, judging from his mentions by Nussbaum, whose fire hose of offbeat antics just didn't run dry.

 

Nussbaum was to cover Taflinger, the artist, countless times from the '40s through the '60s, but particular noteworthy were a couple of episodic stretches where he was to present humorous bits about Taflinger and his cats, and Taflinger and his search for nude models, over several columns each, at a time. An example, shown almost in its entirety to demonstrate the homespun inanity of the coverage, and because it is a typical example of many such mentions of Taf by Nussbaum over those years,  in the September 17, 1945, Indianapolis Star reads as follows, 

“Elmer Taflinger, the artist, doesn't know which is worse – cats or rats. Sometimes he thinks maybe it's the cats. No rats, he theorizes, ever brought a cat into his studio, but his cats – well....

Some time back, the cats dragged in what looked like a mouse. Much to Elmer's disgust, the well fed cats just played with the mouse, but didn't kill it.  The 'mouse' stayed around and eventually grew into a full-grown rat. The cats wouldn't bother it. One day Elmer discovered the rat had eaten the insulation off the wiring in his expensive electronic recording device.  

Then he saw red. From the nearby Propylaeum, he borrowed a mouse trap. Nothing happened. He lectured the cats about their duties, but they just yawned. 

So Elmer went to the dime store and bought four big rat traps. That did the trick. But Elmer's still mad at his cats.” 

  

During the 1940s, Taflinger continued teaching his large classes in figure drawing and portraits at his school, and he developed a relation as a visiting teacher and lecturer at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. 

Regarding his stint at DePauw, a clipping from what may be the student newspaper describes a lecture 

Taflinger gave entitled “Painful Acquisition of Knowledge without the Blessing of Academic Guidance.” The talk, which concerned the turning points of his art career between the rags and not so rich ages of 12 and 35, was subtitled in chapters with competitive titles; Episode One - Beautiful Teacher or Raggedy Man Reward,  second – Murat Shoebox or What Happened to the Landlady's Cat, third – The Falling Quarter or David Belasco's Perfect Memory... and so on, through six episodes.  

The scattered and haphazard talk was summed up by Taflinger himself, when he is quoted as saying his humorous lecture “lopped off the flamboyant fixtures to my conception of art.”  Whatever that is supposed to mean. 

Taf could not settle for one title for his turning  points, so he gave each one of them two. The dueling  nature of his dual titles, reveal a warring psyche in flux. On display, his thoughts battle their competing interests and betray a lack of focus, an inability to make a decision or stick with a single 'thing.' 

It seems an understanding Taflinger had of himself, as we shall soon see, this push and pull, this teeter totter of a life and career he lived.

Taflinger's frenetic multitasking was the subject of a detailed biographical sketch of Taflinger appearing in the December 28, 1947, Indianapolis Star. The article by Joseph K. Shepard titled, He Works at his Hobby and Plays at his Work – If He has the Time, begins with a question, “Wasted talent?”

It may be more a conclusion drawn by the writer upon the evidence he gathered through the course of his interview.  Shepard arrives for the interview at Taflinger's residence in the Golden Hills neighborhood of Indianapolis. Taflinger busied himself with various tasks, both tedious and menial, 'antiquing' of bricks for an addition to his home, feeding his many cats, tinkering with his ham radio gear. Meticulous in his procrastination from producing fine art, the bricks when he finished were a perfect match for the existing construction on his home, his cats remained fat and purring, and as an example of the fruits of his electronics bug, the writer relayed the following story,

“(Taf) recorded from the radio Shelbyville's complete basketball career in the state finals last season and sold eight sets of the records to Shelbyville basketball fanatics. It took 30 hours of continuous recording, 14 sides to each set, to complete the order.”

The state of disunion of Taflinger's art career is further addressed in the article,

“...Taf works harder at his hobby than he does at his natural gift.

That's why Taflinger masterpieces are hard to find. They are crumpled in waste-baskets, they are used as kitten bibs, napkins and tablecloths...

...Taflinger admits that he has done little serious work since the mural, Apotheosis of Science...10 years ago.”

Accompanying the article, which again relays Taf's biography a rollicking and vivid way, is a cartoon sketch of the teacher. The teacher Taflinger, as remembered by his student Mickey Thurgood.  With Delilah, a favorite cat, perched clawing to his back. Taf barking criticisms and getting sidetracked with his storytelling while his brushes wait.

Elmer Taflinger drawing by student Micky Thurgood
appearing in Indianapolis Star, 1947

Mark Diekhoff October 2025

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