RICHMOND, INDIANA.- The Richmond Art Museum presents "Adams, Forsyth and Steele: Indiana Paintings from the Lilly Endowment Collection," on view through July 3, 2003. This exhibition is supported by a grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. and is organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. This exhibition highlights works by J. Ottis Adams, William Forsyth and T.C. Steele-the three most prominent members of the Hoosier Group, which also includes the Paris-trained artist Otto Stark and the self-taught painter Richard Gruelle.
Unlike many American artists who studied in Europe and then abandoned their hometowns for New York City, Adams, Forsyth and Steele returned to  Indiana from their training at the Royal Academy in Munich to focus on the Hoosier landscape. Early works by all three artists focus on the customs and pastimes of the German people and are executed with a dark palate and broad brushstrokes. By the 1890s, they had all adopted an Impressionist style and their paintings of American scenes became brighter and filled with texture.
Adams, Forsyth and Steele features familiar Indiana landscapes rendered by these accomplished artists, including tranquil scenes from Brown County and Butler’s Hill, as well as paintings representing the artists’ travels outside of Indiana.
Unlike many American artists who studied in Europe and abandoned their hometowns for New York City, J. Ottis Adams, William Forsyth and T. C. Steele returned to Indiana from their training at the Royal Academy in Munich to focus on the Hoosier landscape. The artists’ first canvases showed an adherence to the Munich manner in their dark tonalities and limited palette of green, gray and brown. Gradually their landscapes became sun filled with richly textured surfaces and blurred contours that exhibited the qualities associated with Impressionism. In the winter of 1894 an exhibition entitled Five Hoosier Painters highlighted the summer work of Adams, Forsyth, Steele, the Paris-trained artist Otto Stark and the self-taught painter Richard Gruelle. Thus the "Hoosier Group" was born.
This exhibition focuses on the three most prominent members of the Hoosier Group, Adams, Forsyth and Steele. Steele painted Munich Haying in 1884 when he was a student at the Academy. The influence of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where numerous works by French Impressionists were shown, is evident in Steele’s 1894 painting Morning - the Sheep with its bright blue sky and rich yellow-green landscape. More vibrant still is Steele’s 1904 Whitewater River, Brookville, a bright sunlit scene viewed from The Hermitage, the home Steele and Adams shared from 1898 to 1907. In 1907, when Steele built the House of the Singing Winds in Brown County, his landscapes began to reflect his new home and studio. Although Indiana scenes dominated Steele’s canvases, he occasionally traveled to the West, where he painted The Clam Diggers near Nye Creek on the Oregon Coast in 1904.
The earliest work by Forsyth in the exhibition is Bavarian Beer Garden done in Munich in 1881. Americans were fascinated by the customs and pastimes of the German people, especially activities associated with the beer garden. In his Road to Vernon painted in the summer of 1891, Forsyth captures the tranquil landscape of this Southern Indiana town. Forsyth used his wife Alice in many of his paintings often showing her in the garden as in Alice Picking Flowers. In 1906 the artist and his family moved to Irvington, a small community outside of Indianapolis bounded by Pleasant Run Parkway. The Bridge depicts this area in the vibrant and animated brushwork that distinguishes Forsyth’s style.
Adams moved permanently to The Hermitage in Brookville, Indiana in 1904. Before settling in the area, he and his family had spent their summers there enjoying the woods and the river. Butler’s Hill done in 1901 shows the spot that is perched on a ridge above the forks of the Whitewater River. Adams and his wife planted a beautiful garden at The Hermitage filled with poppies that the artist often captured in his canvases. He also built a family summer cottage in Indiana Woods at Leland, Michigan in 1905. Several of the artist’s landscapes depict this area, including Sand Hill, Leland.
About Lilly Endowment
Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private philanthropic foundation based in Indianapolis that was created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family, Josiah K. Lilly Sr. and his sons, Josiah K. Jr. and Eli, through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Although gifts of stock in the company remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location.
In keeping with the wishes of its founders, the Endowment exists to support the causes of community development, education and religion. It affords special emphasis to projects that benefit young people and that promote leadership education and financial self-sufficiency in the nonprofit sector. The Lilly family’s foremost priority was to help the people of their city and state build a better life. Although the Endowment supports efforts of national significance and an occasional international project, it remains primarily committed to its hometown and home state.
Over the years the Endowment has sought to recognize, encourage and develop creativity in the state. It takes great pride in Indiana’s heritage of cultural accomplishment. The Hoosier Group includes some of Indiana’s most important Impressionist painters. To ensure significant examples of their work stayed in Indiana for the benefit of its citizens, the Endowment acquired the works you see in this exhibition.