James C. Houser, Jr.

November 12, 1928 — July 31, 2021

Jim Houser, artist and art educator: November 12, 1928—July 31, 2021

Jim Houser, 92, of Hobe Sound, died unexpectedly on the way to the hospital, not long before the

opening of a long-planned retrospective exhibition of his paintings in Stuart.

He was born in Dade City, Florida, and grew up in Jacksonville. He began painting at 14. He studied art

primarily at the University of Florida and Florida Southern College. He taught art in Baltimore and in

Kentucky, and eventually became head of the art department at Palm Beach Junior College (now Palm

Beach State College) in Lake Worth. He retired in 1992 and moved from West Palm Beach to Hobe

Sound, where his father had long made his home.

In 1972 he married the love of his life, Connie, who passed away in 2018. Jim is survived by his son,

Jackson, and his daughter Katrina; and another daughter, Ann.

Jim developed his distinctive painting style in the mid-1960’s, after a sudden insight as he walked out to

get the mail. He was struck by the simple-seeming image of a plain gray mailbox against the bright blue

sky. His hard-edge essentialist realism consists of a number of single shapes—sometimes very intricate

shapes—arranged so they simultaneously produce a pleasing abstract design and a recognizable image,

often from an unusual perspective. The images are typically of ordinary objects common in the Eastern

United States, especially on or near the Atlantic coast.

His work is in numerous museums and private collections, and he has been a prize winner in a number of

art competitions. His work has been displayed overseas as well as in the U.S.

He was looking forward to the retrospective, but his heart closed down before that final opening.

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