BIOGRAPHY OF: STEVE LARSON, ARTIST/PAINTER/PRINTMAKER 

For over thirty years Mr. Larson has been creating original watercolor and oil-paintings from small (7"x 11") to murals over forty feet in length utilizing a full-range of subject matter; such as: LANDSCAPES: sunsets, sunrises, mountains, trains in landscapes, people in landscapes, farm scenes, birds in landscapes, NUDES in landscapes, water in landscapes, city-scenes...also FLORAL PAINTINGS: roses, water-lilies, peonies, day-lilies, wild-flowers, gladiolas, orchids, daffodils, and many more painted indoors and outside...also PORTRAITS: oil or watercolor paint, just the head or full body, inside or outside, clothed or naturalist, any size...also STILL-LIFE: oil or watercolor paint, please see samples...also DECORATIVE PAINTING: such as stenciling (stencils are custom made by artist) and decorative murals which are painted either directly on the wall or on substrates attached later to walls; also found in this section is "decorative tile"-a new skill developed since moving to the South West. Only a small sampling of this body of work (Mr. Larson has created approx. 3,000 paintings between teaching art-classes and renovating houses) could be presented in these web-pages but if you are searching for an artist to create a SITE- SPECIFIC- MURAL or any other commissioned two-dimensional painting, just click-on a thumbnail and take a look at the bigger picture!

Born in Chicago, IL. and reared in South Bend, IN. Mr. Larson majored in Fine Arts at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Serving as his own sales agent for three decades has required dealings with corporate and private clients and Interior Designers representing those clients which has occasionally led to television, radio and newspaper interviews. Additionally, the artist has taught painting for Art Centers, Museums and Universities and Nature Centers in the Mid-West while exhibiting Nationally in a multitude of Juried Competitions where many top awards were won repeatedly. 

In 1996 Mr. Larson and his wife moved from northern IN. to the mountains of rural south-central Colorado into a wind/solar powered Swedish Cordwood/Post & Beam style log house and pole-barn Studio designed and constructed primarily by the artist. The location, though inspiring, proved to be too remote...we couldn't get a regular phone installed and Cellular didn't work well in the mountains.  Consequently, in 1999 we purchased a 105 yr. Old commercial building in Pueblo CO. (5,000 ft. lower in altitude) and I began renovation for what I anticipated would be my first "bricks & mortar" gallery as Painted Horse Gallery and Studio downstairs with an apartment/residence upstairs. Less than a year later, the combined cost of renovations and surgery for a hernia expenses required putting my artwork away and becoming the only distributor in Colorado for a national children's book publisher. The space I'd renovated for gallery and studio quickly filled floor to ceiling with children's books and I was soon driving 5,000 a month delivering book-fairs to Colorado schools. Less than a year later the publisher I had been working for went bankrupt. Meanwhile, the phone company (for our mountain location) was bought-out for the fourth time and they installed a phone which enabled us to put the commercial building on the market. After five contracts defaulted which caused us the frustration of moving in and out of the commercial building four times we found a buyer in Feb., 2003 and in Mar. and April I moved our possessions back into the mountains near Westcliffe, CO.
In June I resumed work in my mountain studio (unfinished with a dirt floor) on a 3ft. x 4ft. oil-paint portrait of a Dentist & his wife composed of a group of snap-shots they took traveling through France & Europe (the painting was completed July 4th). Click on the image below-left to see full-page and more about this painting.I'd like to encourage more people to send me photos of themselves traveling for a new category of portraiture I'll call: "ROMANTIC REALISM TRAVEL PORTRAITURE"! Dig through your old photos and imagine the potential!