Artist Statement
“Ever since the beginning there have been artists who have found in the simple life about them the wonderful and the beautiful, and through the fact of this inspiration have sensed the way to make the combination of form and color we know as art.”
Robert Henri, The Art Spirit
Michael Steinhauser, born in Brooklyn and working in Toronto, has been drawing and painting since he was twelve years old. As a teenager, he studied oil painting at Trinity Studio in Brooklyn. After an academic career in the United States, Europe and Canada, in 1993 he returned to being an active artist. He undertook further studies in the area of Classical Realism, joining the studios of Graham Bibby and Klaas Hart. He studied at the Toronto School of Art and with David Leffel of the Art Student League. He is member of the Portrait Society of Canada and was artist in residence at the Masterworks Foundation, Bermuda. Steinhauser has always been fascinated with the vivid reality portrayed by the Ashcan Artists. This led him to paint cityscapes that draw viewers into the urban beauty of simple street scenes and the people that inhabit them. His interest in everyday objects and the predominant role they play in our lives led him to paint series of oil on canvas still lifes. Steinhauser enjoys working out of the formal classical tradition and linking that tradition with the present. Steinhauser’s drawings and paintings are in private and corporate collections across North America and Bermuda. They include urban scenes, landscape and commissioned portraits. He is represented by STUDIO VOGUE Gallery in Toronto.
Exhibitions
2009, Florence Biennale, Florence, Italy2008, The Painted Lady Gallery, Nobelton, Ontario
2007, Survey the Valley, Red Sable Gallery, Toronto
2003—2007, The RedEye Studio Gallery, Toronto
2004, The Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, Botanical Gardens, Bermuda
2003, Wednesday’s Work, Neilson Park Creative Centre, Etobicoke
2002, Here and Now Gallery, Toronto
2001—2006, Bayview Art Tour, Toronto
2001, Faculty Club, University of Toronto
2001, Praxis Gallery, Toronto
2001, Propellor Centre for the Visual Art, Toronto
2000, Station Gallery, Whitby, Ontario
1999, Blue Begonia Restaurant, Toronto
1999, Seasons of the Heart, York Civic Center, Toronto
1988, Country of the Mind, York Civic Center, Toronto
1998 to 2009, Biannual exhibition at the Don Valley Art Club, Toronto