Howard Sherman

2006, M.F.A., Studio Art: Drawing and Painting
Based in Houston, Texas
Instagram: @howard_sherman
Website: Howard Sherman

2024 Exhibitions
4411 Montrose gallery pop-up exhibition, Houston, Texas
“Howard Sherman” book launch by Snap Editions, New York City
“Fuego Frio” William Campbell Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas
Hogan Brown Gallery pop-up exhibition and book signing; Houston, Texas

Since receiving his Masters of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from UNT in 2006, Howard Sherman has been leading a new generation of bombastic contemporary painters in the Texas art world and beyond. Sherman’s large-scale canvases carry traces of his background in cartooning, offsetting the loud, raw power of his aggressive paint strokes with a playful sense of humor. His smaller works on paper show an intuitive use of material in a distilled yet assertive manner.

The large paintings facilitate the immense physicality within Sherman’s work, while leaving space for his keen sense of formal resolution. The frenetic and muscular heft of the work is balanced with a measured precision and a thoughtful integration of several art historical styles. Sherman’s cartoonish figuration complements his bold use of abstract mark making, embedding into the canvases what could be read as portraits, punch lines or poems.

Only two years after completing his M.F.A., Sherman was featured in a solo traveling exhibition originating at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas. His work is in several museum collections and is on permanent display at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. Sherman’s painting was chosen for the cover of the art history book "Texas Abstract: Modern/Contemporary" by Michael Paglia and Jim Edwards. The artist has been profiled several times in "New American Paintings" and his work appears in the book "Texas Artists Today." Rice University, Houston, Texas, collects his personal artifacts for its research center. He has been awarded numerous residencies around the U.S. and included in many exhibitions regionally, nationally and globally. Recently, Sherman’s work has been frequently exhibited in Berlin, Germany, and Marfa, Texas.

Snap Editions Books published a major monograph on the Sherman in 2023. Contributing writers include Andrea Karnes, head curator of Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, David Cohen, editor of "Artcritical" online magazine, and  Alex Bacon, art critic, editor and publisher and Princeton Museum Curator.