Calm weather

1934-

Ian Houston was born in Gravesend, Kent. He had an early passion for the arts and attended the Royal College of Music before his attention turned to painting after studying part time at St Martin’s School of Art.

In 1956 whilst still only 22 he started exhibiting in London and met Edward Seago from whom he received on-going training and encouragement with his painting. Later the same year he moved away from London and settled in rural Norfolk.

He soon took to East-Anglian life; he continued to paint and to hold exhibits locally and developed a passion for sailing, which led him to buy a sea-going Thames Spiritsail Barge.

Houston’s love of sailing comes through in his landscapes: boats and seascapes can be seen regularly in his paintings, which are often dominated by vast East-Anglian skies. Oils are his passion and he uses them proficiently, capturing the light and mood to striking effect.

Houston exhibited a one-man show in Australia during the Eighties and since the mid- Nineties has regularly exhibited at the Portland Gallery, London, with the next exhibition due there in September 2008.