Nature or nurture? A combination of both may be responsible for producing three generations of artists in the Steiner family, each with a unique style and artistic aesthetic.

Patriarch Joe Steiner had no exposure to art as a child but remembers being thrilled when he was able to draw a horse that actually looked like a horse at the age of four or five. Over time, he developed his skills largely on his own, until he won a citywide art competition while still in high school. He followed a different path for a while, majoring in psychology in college. Later, he took occasional art classes, entered art fairs, then ran a successfully gallery and art school in Lincolnwood for a number of years, before closing the gallery to devote more time to painting.

Joe’s daughter, Lisa, grew up around art and artists. A photo of her drawing at her father’s feet during an art fair appeared in a local paper when she was just a preschooler. She also followed a different path as a college undergraduate, but later studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, earned an MFA at the University of Oregon, and became a painter.