Steve Wheeler

Steve Wheeler (1912, 1992) was an American painter associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement, though his work retained a distinctive figurative and symbolic quality that set him apart from his contemporaries. A member of the loosely affiliated group known as the 'Indians' or the Indian Space painters, Wheeler developed a highly personal visual language drawing on Native American art, Surrealism, and abstraction. Despite exhibiting alongside major figures of the New York art world in the 1940s and 1950s, Wheeler largely withdrew from the art scene and remained underrecognized until renewed critical interest emerged decades after his death.