Steven Assael

Steven Assael paints modern-day figures in haunting, quietly psychological portraits. A leader in contemporary figurative painting, Assael works exclusively from live models, fusing his modern subjects—goths and teens, men and women in costume—with an Old Master style and traditional tableaux. “Even though art is dead as we have known it, painting is not,” he has said. Assael’s work has been compared to that of Thomas Eakins and reveals a similar interest the human figure both as aesthetic form and as vehicle for emotions and psychological states.

EDUCATION:                       

1975-79                      Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

1977                            Independent Study in Europe, Pratt Scholarship

TEACHING:                       

1985-Present           School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

{C}1991-92               Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

1999                          Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

1997-Present            New York Academy Graduate School, New York, NY