The Impressionists of Indiana

The Hoosier Group

The Shades 1888 T.C. Steele

“To live out-of-doors in intimate touch with nature,
to feel the sun, to watch the ever-changing face of the landscape,
where waters run and winds blow and trees wave and clouds move,
and to walk with all the hours of the day and into the mysteries of night
through all the seasons of the year - this is the heaven of the Hoosier Painter!”

- William Forsyth

The names of the five artists of the Hoosier Group of Indiana - Theodore Clement Steele, William Forsyth, Otto Stark, John Ottis Adams and Richard Gruelle - may not be familiar to you, but you may recognize their work. During their time they were a regional artistic force of national significance.

By the time William Merritt Chase was well-established in New York and teaching a new generation of young Americans at the Art Students League (1878-1896) the European techniques he had absorbed, American artists…