Early Years and Influences
Drawing has been a central part of Mark Stewart’s life from a very early age. In high school his natural gift led him to a drafting class and from there to Architecture while at Texas A&M University. It was there in the mid 70’s that Mark began to paint, experimenting with watercolor technique and closely studying the work of Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper. He graduated from A&M in 1975 with a master’s degree in Architecture and a serious commitment to his artistic avocation of watercolor painting.
In the intervening years, Mark has engaged in dual careers – art and architecture. As an architect, Mark has designed a number of libraries and museums, including the Clayton Genealogical Research Library in downtown Houston. His most recent projects have focused on historical renovation and preservation of public buildings like the Lakeview Auditorium in Sugar Land, Texas. Meanwhile, his career as a watercolor artist has flourished.
Galleries and Exhibits
Since 1980, Mark has had many One Man Exhibitions and is currently represented by Red Piano Art Gallery in Hilton Head, S.C., Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery in Center Sandwich, NH, and Marta Stafford Fine Art in Marble Falls, Texas, and the The Gallery at Brookwood in Brookshire, Texas. He has been featured in Southwest Art, American Artist, and Art Talk Magazine. Along with commercial exhibitions, Mark's paintings have been shown at the Museum of the Art of the American West, the University Center Galleries at Texas A&M, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Tucson Museum of Art, Albuquerque Museum of Art and the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. New York Graphic Society and Bruce McGaw Graphics each print a selection of Mark's watercolor paintings for worldwide distribution.
 Mark Stewart and Family |
 The Stewart Home |
One of Mark’s finest paintings, “Putting Her Hair Up” was selected for the 135th International Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society. The painting depicts his wife Glenda, who died in September 1995 of breast cancer, leaving him with three young children. In 1998, Mark married a young widow, also with three children. Despite the enormous challenges of designing and building a larger home and leading a blended family, Mark has continued to find and paint the beauties of the quiet life – often in and around his own home.
As a painter, Mark is a realist who is nevertheless intrigued by the mystery behind reality. His subjects, whether human or inanimate, seem imbued with a quiet pensiveness – a patient wait for the thing within the thing to show itself. Mark's watercolor paintings neatly marry an elegant specificity with the shadows of suggestion, in keeping with the soul of reality.