Stephen Estrada was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Southern California. After his graduation from high school in North Carolina, where the Estrada family had relocated, he attended the Art Institute of Boston. He rented a studio in the Plant Shoe Factory, a thriving artists’ enclave, but in early 1976 fire destroyed the building and the work of more than one hundred artists. Soon after, he moved to Washington, D.C., to attend the Corcoran School of Art, where he studied with William Christenberry and Robert Stackhouse, who encouraged his exploration of the natural world as a source for his paintings.

In 1987 he took a job at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where he began a successful twenty-five-year-long museum career—first as an exhibition designer at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery and later as the design chief overseeing exhibits at the National Air and Space Museum. He currently works from his studio in Silver Spring, Maryland. He has exhibited widely on the East Coast, and his work is included in numerous public and private collections all over the country. This was his first exhibition at the Morris Museum of Art. (Information from www.stephenestradaart.com)