Hot House Studio - Mark Steven Greenfield

A native Angeleno, Mark Steven Greenfield, the son of Tuskegee Airman Russell Greenfield, spent his early years on military bases from Taiwan to Germany.  He was greatly influenced by the art and history that he came in contact with and as years passed he sought methods of communicating ideas through the visual arts.  He studied under Charles White and John Riddle at Otis Art Institute and went on to receive his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach.  He held various positions as a Visual Display Artist, a Park Director, a Graphic Design Instructor and a Police Artist before attaining his Master of Fine Arts degree from California State University, Los Angeles in 1987.  From 1993 until 2002 he was the director of the internationally renowned Watts Towers of Simon Rodia.  In his capacity as an administrator for the Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Los Angeles, he developed a reputation as a respected curator of exhibitions and was instrumental in producing the Annual Watts Towers Jazz Festival and the Watts Towers Day of the Drum Festival. In 1998 he served as the Head of the U. S. delegation to the World Cup Cultural Festival in Paris and in 2002 he was part of the Getty Visiting Scholars program.

Mark continues to have an active life as a visual artist, exhibiting throughout the United States and abroad.  In 1997 he joined the faculty at Los Angeles City College where he teaches course work in Drawing, Design and Art History.  He has served on the boards of the Downtown Arts Development Association, the Korean American Museum, The Armory Center for the Arts and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association.  He recently retired from his position as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery for the Department of Cultural Affairs.