Steve Huston studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and embarked on an illustration career while still in school. After graduating he worked in illustration for 10 years, acquiring a client list that included MGM, Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures.
He then started to teach drawing, painting and composition at the Art Center, and later in corporate classes at Disney, Warner Brothers and Dreamworks. He has since transitioned into gallery art.
Though he occasionally does landscapes, the majority of Huston’s paintings are of figures. Of these his fascination with the complex geometry of the human form, and the surface topography of musculature, takes its greatest expression in his series of paintings of boxers, wrestlers and laborers.
He presents these in dramatic chiaroscuro combined with areas of smudged, “lost” edges, rough paint textures and gestural expressions of motion.
Huston lists among his influences Titian, Rembrandt and the early American Tonalist painters. I personally see the influence of Thomas Eakins in his work. Huston also cites American comic books for their graphic qualities and exaggeratedly heroic treatment of the figure.
Huston apparently no longer has a dedicated website, but is represented by several galleries. The Eleanor Ettinger Gallery has the largest selection of his work, though the reproductions are frustratingly small.
Skotia Gallery has fewer pieces, but they are presented somewhat larger, along with a bio.
