Stephen Scott Young

Stephen Scott Young (b. 1957 Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American artist best known for his watercolor paintings and etchings that depict everyday life in the south of the United States and the Out Islands of The Bahamas. Often focusing on themes including coming of age, class, race, and social conditions, Young's work is noted for its realist use of watercolor and eloquent simplicity of subject matter done in the American realist tradition. Referred to as a master of copperplate etching, Young's strident attention to detail and intricacy are reminiscent of the "Old Masters," Caravaggio, Vermeer, Rembrandt and Whistler, whose influence is clear, while his use of light has brought him frequent comparison to other American realists Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth. Though the images he creates are often nostalgic, his work deals with contemporary issues and stands out as undeniably modernist. Art historian Henry Adams wrote of Young in the late 1980s: "He is like one of those prospectors who has gone back to the tailings of an abandoned mine and where others saw only useless rocks found quantities of untapped, undiscovered gold." He has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and has work in major American museums, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Greenville County Museum of Art, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Biography

Young's first interest in art arrived during his childhood, when his mother gave him picture books of Caravaggio and Vermeer, to copy. When he was fourteen years old, his family moved to Gainesville, Florida. After graduating from high school, Young attended the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, where he was introduced to etchings and began to paint with watercolor. In 1985, Young won first prize in a national art competition held by American Artist magazine, marking the beginning of his career as an artist. Soon after, he traveled to the islands of The Bahamas, where he began to study light and paint the black figure, undertakings that shaped the rest of his career. He has painted rural scenes of everyday life from the northeast of the United States, the south, including South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, as well as his prolific career depicting life in The Bahamas.

He has been described as "A virtuoso realist in the classic tradition," and "an anomaly on the modern scene."

He is also one of the youngest living artists whose work was sold at both Christie's and Sotheby's auction houses.

Selected Exhibitions

"A Master Among Us" - Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama

The Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN

The Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC

The Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL

Museum of Art, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR

The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

The Jacksonville Art Museum, Jacksonville, FL

Adelson Galleries, New York, NY

References

• [1]
• [2]
• Review, American Arts Quarterly, Volume 26, number 3
• Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
• Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art
• Review, Carolina Arts
• Nolan, John M. A Guide to Historic Greenville, South Carolina, p. 132
• Exhibition Announcement, Art Business News
• Featured Artist: Stephen Scott Young: New Works April 15th through May 29th, 2009
• Watercolor Paintings & Silverpoint Drawings by Stephen Scott Young, Watercolor Magazine, February 22, 2010
• Stephen Scott Young: A Modern Master Explores New Subjects & Techniques, Watercolor Magazine, March 16, 2010
• Video Demonstration from American Artist magazine
• Tampa Bay Magazine coverage of Stephen Scott Young acquisition, St. Petersburg Museum of Art, FL
• Bay area arts patron ratchets up his support, St. Petersburg Times, July 20, 2003