Christopher Steele

(Muncie, Indiana, 1945 - 2008, Cleveland, Ohio)

North America, American

Steele (born Christopher Steele Brower) read and published his poetry in Cleveland for several decades. Until the final year of his life, this self-taught artist kept his drawings private, perhaps because they were unfiltered expressions of his internal world. Many are “automatic drawings,” where the pen is guided by the unconscious, a technique pioneered by the Surrealists in the early 20th century. Others serve as diaries and concrete poems. Steele was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age twenty-one. Although the disease and its treatment were isolating, he has tried to build bridges to others by expressing himself through poetry and drawing.

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