We are happy to partner with the Haan Museum of Indiana Art to present several T.C. Steele paintings in their collection. The paintings selected will debut with the March Painting of the Month. Be on the lookout for these excellent paintings!
The Haan Museum of Indiana Art
The Haan Mansion began as the Connecticut Building at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair (officially the Louisiana Purchase Exposition). Numerous parts from the 1760 Hubbard-Slater mansion in Norwich were used in the building, which was purchased by William and Fannie Potter after the Fair, and reconstructed in Lafayette.
The home was in poor condition when the Haans purchased it from the Potter descendants in 1984, but the Haans lived in the home as it was, while running Haan Crafts (their company that made sewing projects to teach students how to sew) and raising their three sons. When they started working on the house in 1992, they decided to decorate the walls with paintings by Indiana artists, thinking that it would be less expensive than important American paintings, and that there would be fewer artists to learn about. They had no idea about the quality of work that was produced in Indiana, or how that decision would change their lives.
The timing was perfect, as it was shortly after The Passage exhibition of paintings by TC Steele, J Ottis Adams and William Forsythe, the three Hoosier Group members who studied in Munich. The exhibition and a book were put together by Mary Krause at what was then the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the show also travelled Munich and New York City. Many of the paintings were borrowed from private collectors, and some of those collectors decided that it was the ideal time to sell, because the values would never be higher.
