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House of the Singing Winds, 1922, oil on canvas
Horses on a sun-gilded hill look across a wooded vista. Women in long dresses do chores on a farm. Winter snow covers the steep hill behind a house. Until last year, these and other evocative images captured by the Indiana painter T. C. Steele hung in the tiny Greenwood, Indiana, apartment of Cordelia Collins.
Healing arts met the fine arts in Cordelia’s life and living room. A retired nurse with an eye for oils she graduated from the Indianapolis School of Nursing in 1932, and was married to Hubert L. Collins (MD’39). When she died in 2004, she left seven of Steele’s paintings to Indiana University. (See slideshow below.) Six of these were part of her estate gift to the IU School of Medicine, and one to the IU Art Museum.
Sherry Rouse, curator of campus art, remembers, “We went into this small apartment. Mrs. Collins was then in a rest home, so the neighbor let us in. It took my breath away to see all this incredible art hanging on the walls. The paintings took up every bit of wall space. We wrapped each one carefully with bubble wrap, sheets, and blankets. Then we brought them to the IU Art Museum in Bloomington, where they are safe and sound. It’s a rare gift, and a great one.”
The six paintings for the School of Medicine were designated to be sold with the proceeds to go toward the school’s Alzheimer’s disease research. But the school realized that Steele’s paintings rank highly among Indiana’s cultural treasures. It was arranged that the paintings would sell in accordance with the donors’ wishes — and yet still be displayed at the School of Medicine.
Here’s how: George Rapp (MD’57) and his wife Peggy together with their son John (DDS’85) and his wife Leslie bought the six paintings given to the School of Medicine. After the purchase, they generously donated three of them back to the school. Of the three paintings they kept, they agreed to loan one painting at a time for display at the school. So on any given occasion, there might be four T. C. Steele paintings on display there. The seventh was given to the IU Art Museum before Mrs. Collins’ death, but delivered to the museum with the others.
Rouse relates some of Steele’s long history with IU. “He was the first art professor ever on a college campus. Steele was hired by William Lowe Bryan, rather a gentleman’s agreement. Steele spent the latter years of his life painting Indiana University.
“He didn’t exactly teach,” Rouse continues, “but he was available for discussion and observation. The Indiana Memorial Union at IU Bloomington acquired its first two landscape paintings from the artist for $200 each.”
All seven paintings from the Cordelia Collins gift will be on exhibit at the IU Art Museum in Bloomington through August 7, 2005. Several more T. C. Steele paintings hang at the Indiana Memorial Union at IUB throughout the year.
—Cary Boyce
Multimedia: See the T. C. Steele slideshow.
Learn more about the IU School of Medicine.
Read about the IU Art Museum.