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If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, consider supporting us as a member. Join Us In 1950, the year after he began his studies in art at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Charles Steffen suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized for schizophrenia. Over the next 13 years, he would alternate between living at home with his mother and three of his seven siblings and at Elgin State Hospital, where he would make art in between receiving electroshock treatments.
In 1963, Steffen settled permanently at his mother’s house and continued to make as many as three drawings a day. Of limited means, he frequently executed his graphite and colored pencil works on found paper, including lined pages, envelopes, and brown paper bags. Steffen made thousands of drawings over the ensuing years, though they were periodically destroyed at the insistence of his sister Rita.