Name Louis Steele | ||
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Died 1918, Auckland, New Zealand | ||
Louis John Steele (30 January 1842 – 12 December 1918) was a notable New Zealand artist and engraver. He was born in Reigate, Surrey. Steele’s parents were the surgeon John Sisson Steele and Harriet (née Thompson).
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Biography
He studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris before journeying to Florence. Steele returned to Paris before 1870, and was living in the city during the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. He returned to Britain shortly afterwards and exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1872 and 1875. From 1881 to 1886 Steele showed etchings at the Academy.
Steele married Marie Louise Alexandrine Piatti some time before 1871. Their two sons were named Ernest Henri and Louis John Sisson Piatti (born August 1871).
Career
Steele emigrated to New Zealand circa 1886, settling in Auckland. Marie Louise did not accompany him. He opened a studio in an arcade in Shortland Street. One of his early pupils was Charles Frederick Goldie, the most significant painter of Maori subjects. In New Zealand Steele painted portraits, racehorses, and scenes from history. Some of his history paintings were on a large scale, produced in collaboration with other artists. His large oil painting of an elderly Sir John Logan Campbell at his house Kilbryde, now the site of the Parnell Rose Gardens, was thought lost for 100 years but resurfaced in 2017; it fetched a record $505,000. In 1898 he and Goldie collaborated on The Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand, now considered the best-known history painting to be completed in New Zealand; it was based directly on Theodore Géricault's famous Raft of the Medusa.
The contents of Steele’s studio were auctioned on 16 August 1917. He died in Auckland on 12 December 1918.