Charles Steffen

1927-1995 · Chicago, Illinois, USA

Up to three drawings a day on brown wrapping paper in a Chicago family home, for decades. Nearly all of it was thrown away, and what survived still fills museums with wonder.

The life

Steffen studied drawing, art history and photography at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the late 1940s until a breakdown around 1950 ended his studies. He spent 1952 to 1963 in Elgin State Hospital, where he began to draw, and afterwards lived with his mother and siblings in Chicago, drawing daily and annotating each sheet with notes on his day. When the family home was sold in 1994 he was ready to bin the lot, but gave the drawings to his nephew Christopher Preissing instead. Everything made before 1989 is lost; the last six years alone secured his reputation.

The work

Graphite and coloured pencil on brown wrapping paper and taped-together paper bags, some figures eight feet tall: nudes, self-portraits, family, crucifixions, and bodies that merge with sunflowers and other plants, drawn in his distinctive webbed, looping line. His work is held by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Why we love them

He drew the way other people breathe, and never asked the world to watch. Six salvaged years turned out to be enough.

Go deeper

• Charles Steffen at the Outsider Art Fair
• Charles Steffen on Wikipedia
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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