Born in Kiev, Ukraine, on March 19, 1967, Alexey Steele began his art training at an early age in the studio of his father, renowned Russian artist Leonid Steele. He furthered his professional education at the prestigious Surikov Art Institute of the Soviet Academy of Arts in Moscow, studying under internationally acclaimed artist Illia Glazunov. In 1990, Steele moved to Los Angeles where he still resides as he paints large-scaled figurative murals, commissioned portraits, and California plein air landscapes inspired by the classical color palette of the Moscow School.

Two of Steele’s unique grand-scaled mural commissions include The Circle, figurative composition with a diameter of 31 feet, and the slightly smaller allegorical work, The Soul of the Hero. Among Steele’s numerous exhibitions are two that were held at the Fleischer Museum of Art in Scottsdale, Arizona, titled Russian Treasures and Two Generations of Artists: Leonid and Alexey Steele. A Solo exhibition of Steele’s work was shown in 2005 at the Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, California; titled Outside Constraints. In addition, his work has been featured in exhibitions at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, Santa Ana, California; Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles; Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, Malibu, California; Pasadena Historical Museum, Pasadena, California; Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena, California; Phippen Museum, Prescott, Arizona; University of Arkansas Fine Arts Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas; and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles.

Steele is a Signature Member of the California Art Club and was the recipient of the Silver Medal for the 1994 California Discovery Award. In 1996, he co-founded the Annual Russian Heritage Festival, which continued to be presented at the historic Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California until 2005.

Artist's Statement
High Art Forever
There is a silent and unformulated argument raging in today’s art world: How do we cope with the classical legacy while suddenly seeing it not as a curious but needless relict of “couldn't-care-less-of” times, but as an integral, living and breathing part of our super post-modern reality.

You would not find this question presented to you yet in critical reviews, curatorial notes at the exhibitions, in newspapers or magazines, but nevertheless the debate is clear and present, torturously soul-searching and demanding, probably even much more so because of its unspoken state. In fact, this very debate is defining the otherwise indefinable state of Art today while inevitably shaping the Art of tomorrow. It is the silent underlying current of today's most interesting exhibitions, reviews and articles, as well as of some notable if not regrettable wonderings and metamorphosis of few established names of the art's yesteryears. It is also explicitly evident mode in the drive by an entire new generation of young artists.

Is it possible for the “High” to endure in today's “Art”? Is there a place for the “High Art” in today's society? Is it possible for totally and shockingly none - 20th century art to possess an unbearably expressive and relevant visual statement of today? And how it can look like?

Images and Ideas, not presidents and chairmen, move the world. What are the Ideas that will determine the Images of the 21st century?

If being true to oneself in its entirety is the main criteria for any current movement in art - this is one of possible answers.

Neglected for now by the iron headed main stream art establishment of today's “academy” this newest brand of classical art form finds itself in the strange yet fascinating and inspiring state of true non-conformist movement identical to the position of early modernists at the turn of the last century.

Welcome to the world of “Classical Underground”, welcome to the high art which is forever.