Hugh Auchincloss Steers (June 12, 1962 – March 1, 1995) was an American painter whose work is in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...

, and the

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...

. He died of

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

at the age of 32.

Early life

Steers was born on June 12, 1962, to Nina Gore Auchincloss and Newton Steers. He was the second of three children born to his parents. Steers had two brothers, Ivan Steers the oldest and

Burr Steers Burr Gore Steers (born October 8, 1965) is an American actor, screenwriter, and director. His films include '' Igby Goes Down'' (2002) and '' 17 Again'' (2009). He is a nephew of writer Gore Vidal. Early life and education Steers was born in ...

, the youngest, the filmmaker. He attended the

Hotchkiss School The Hotchkiss School is a private college-preparatory day and boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut. It educates approximately 600 students in grades 9–12, plus postgraduates. Founded in 1891, it was one of the first English-style boardi ...

Lakeville, Connecticut Lakeville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, close to Dutchess County, New York. It is within the town of Salisbury, but has its own ZIP Code (06039). As of the 2010 census, the population of L ...

and graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1985. He later attended

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

, graduating in 1991. Steers was the grandson of Hugh D. Auchincloss and Nina Gore and the great-grandson of

Thomas Gore Thomas Pryor Gore (December 10, 1870March 16, 1949) was an American politician who served as one of the first two United States senators from Oklahoma, from 1907 to 1921 and again from 1931 to 1937. He first entered politics as an activist for t ...

. His mother was the half-sister of writer

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...

and a stepsister of

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American writer, book editor, and socialite who served as the first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A popular f ...

. In 1974, his parents divorced and later that same year, his mother married her second husband,

Michael Straight Michael Whitney Straight (September 1, 1916 – January 4, 2004) was an American publishing, magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, a member of the prominent Whitney family, and a confessed spy for the KGB. Early life Straight was bor ...

. The wedding was attended by Hugh D. Auchincloss, Janet Auchincloss,

Jackie Kennedy Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American writer, book editor, and socialite who served as the first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A popular f ...

Renata Adler Renata Adler (born October 19, 1937) is an American author, journalist, and film critic. Adler was a staff writer-reporter for ''The New Yorker'' for over thirty years and the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1968 to 1969. She h ...

Beatrice Straight Beatrice Whitney Straight (August 2, 1914 – April 7, 2001) was an American theatre, film, television and radio actress and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She was both an Academy Award and Tony Award winner, as well as a Primetime Em ...

, and

Peter Cookson Peter Cookson (May 8, 1913 – January 6, 1990) was an American stage and film actor of the 1940s and 1950s. He was known for his collaborations with his wife, Beatrice Straight, an actress and member of the Whitney family. Early life Cookso ...

Art

In 1989, Steers received a

Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing funding to visual artists internationally to further their artistic practices. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expr ...

Fellowship and had his first solo exhibition. He went on to exhibit his work in over 30 shows across the United States and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Steers' work, primarily figurative painting, is featured in the

, the

, and the

. He painted in a style that mixed dreamlike allegory with

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

-tinged realism and incorporated art history references. In the 1990s, his work increasingly dealt with

and many of his paintings showed male figures alone nearly nude or clothed in women's attire. Steers also depicted pairs of men bathing, dressing each other, and embracing. In his final works, he painted a self-portrait of a man dressed in a white hospital gown with white high heels. The figure is shown entering the lives of other characters as both an avenging and a guardian angel. A comprehensive

monographic A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

catalogue of Steers’ work was published by Visual AIDS in 2015.

Personal life

Steers was openly gay and died of

related complications in 1995 at the age of 32.

Exhibitions

*Drawing Center, New York (1987) *

Albright-Knox Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buff ...

, Buffalo, NY (1988) *

Denver, Colorado Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

(1991) *Midtown Galleries, New York (1990Foss, Paul and Hugh Steers. HUGH STEERS: The Flaws of Hospitality. Essay by Paul Foss. May-June 1990. New York, Midtown Galleries.) *Richard Anderson, New York (1992) *New Museum of Contemporary Art (1994) *''Cadmus, Steers, Warhol'' (2012) *

Art Basel Miami Beach Art Basel Miami Beach, sometimes referred to as "Art Basel Miami," is an art fair founded in 2002 as an offshoot of the flagship Art Basel fair in Switzerland. It is currently considered the most important art fair in the United States and was the f ...

(2012) *Art Kabinett

''History, Painting'' (2012) *''Hugh Steers'', Alexander Gray Associates (2013) *Hugh Steers,

(2013) *Art AIDS America,

Tacoma Art Museum The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the ...

(2015) *Hugh Steers' ''Day Light'' Alexander Gray Associates (2015) *Hugh Steers' ''Strange State of Being'' Alexander Gray Associates (2021)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steers, Hugh Auchincloss 1962 births 1995 deaths Painters from New York City Painters from Washington, D.C. Yale University alumni 20th-century American painters American male painters AIDS-related deaths in New York (state) American gay artists Auchincloss family Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni 20th-century American LGBTQ people LGBTQ people from New York (state) LGBTQ people from Washington, D.C.

Early life

Art

Personal life

Exhibitions

See also

References