John Steptoe

1950 – 1989

John Lewis Steptoe, creator of award-winning picture books for children, was born in Brooklyn on September 14, 1950 and was raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of that borough. He began drawing as a young child and received his formal art training at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan. He was a student in the HARYOU-ACT Art Program and instructed by the highly recognized African American oil painter, Norman Lewis. He continued his studies at the Vermont Academy, where he was instructed by sculptor John Torres, and by William Majors, a painter acclaimed by the Museum of Modem A