R V Stedman

R V "Van" Stedman is a painter, photographer, print-maker, mixed-media visual artist, independent film actor, recording artist, poet, short story author, television arts and antiques appraisal personality, syndicated newspaper columnist, public television and charity fundraiser, radio talk show personality, professional auctioneer, art historian, design collector and gallery owner. He was born in Endicott, NY to Richard J and Joyce A Stedman who formerly had resided on Tinker Street in the Woodstock, NY artist's colony. His father acted in Provincetown summer stock theater before deciding against a stage career, becoming a history teacher and then an antiques dealer. Stedman's mother, an interior designer who had dated a member of Fred Waring's orchestra prior to marrying Richard, joined her husband in their upstate New York antiques business. Van spent his days after school and weekends in his parent's antiques shop which was a browsing and gathering place of academics from Harpur College, Manhattan transplants and artists including painter Angelo Ippolito, classical musicians Toby Appel, Elmar Oliveira and Sandra Robbins, comedian Ted Baer, writer Dave Rossie, poet Heather McHugh, dancers Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane as well as SoHo gallery owner Ivan Karp. Aside from winning a beautiful baby contest at age one and being a constant companion with his parents to greater New York museums, his first significant artistic foray was when he received a Polaroid camera at age 12 while on vacation in Key West, Florida. A brief stint as part of a collective known as the Tracy Street School of Painters while in college notwithstanding, his primary visual medium was photography and photographic-based mixed media, collage and digital art from 1978 until 2006. Van was the subject of a newspaper feature article at age 13 for his interest in dealing in antiques and collectibles, later at 15 being touted as the youngest auctioneer in New York State. In 1981 he attended a professional auctioneer's academy in North Palm Beach, FL and presided over approximately 100 live auction audiences by age 18, bolstered this time by a Gannett-owned newspaper feature on his showmanship and his first TV appearance as an on-air fund-raising auctioneer for WSKG public television. Van's poetry was chosen for a high school literary publication before he began an art history curriculum at Harpur College at 16, later studying at New Paltz College in the Hudson Valley and at Purchase College in Westchester where he also took studio art with Ellen Buljetta before returning to Binghamton to graduate with a BA in Art History from Harpur. During his college years he began working as a newspaper columnist, authoring a series of 20th century design articles for The Antiquer's Guide as well as being syndicated in the New York and Massachusetts editions of The Hudson Valley/Berkshire Antiquer edited by Showtime at the Apollo author Ted Fox. Another college on-camera experience was acting in two independent films that were never released, one a Cold War political satire with his character an improvised singing portrayal of the poet Robert Frost for which he also adapted the lyrics and the other project a short film compendium portraying a vernacular upstate NY personage. Twice Van wrote and sang on alternative rock demo tapes, the first in the early 1980's and again in the early '90's as a member of the studio project band The Wrong. In 1994 Van was chosen as an original panel expert on the Emmy-nominated Personal FX: The Collectibles Show, appearing live from Manhattan as a Wednesday appraiser for the first 13 weeks of the original year of production. His television role also landed him an appearance on Greater NY's WVOX radio. While his f/X role was his first series of screen tests, in the early '80's Van had auditioned by telephone to Hollywood for a revival of What's My Line as an auctioneer, losing the role to a younger cattle caller in a ten gallon hat. In the late 1990's Van moved to St. Petersburg, FL where he continued digital art he had first explored in his Nyack, NY studio while attending Purchase College. Also serving as an art consultant, he provided some of the research services for 2001's Digging for Dutch: The Search for the Lost Treasure of Dutch Schultz feature film by Laura Levine. His Florida move saw his first works included in a museum collection - a digital print and two graphic designs in the Print Club of Albany. In 2004 part of Van's personal design collection was profiled in the Wall Street Journal and he appears on the second episode of Antiques Roadshow FYI as a bidder at Sotheby's Johnny Cash estate auction. Van served as a Sotheby's Dot Com Associate from the late 1990's to the mid-2000's. In 2006 Van Stedman began drawing as his primary medium with compositions ranging from Modernism to Post-Modernism, often on a small scale. In 2012 he began painting, sometimes basing his subjects on earlier drawings with others referencing urban landscapes reminiscent of the industrial Northeast of his youth. Another theme in Van's visual art has been the incorporation of Florida landmarks in otherwise more abstract compositions. Van's residence and studio remain in the Tampa Bay however his gallery, with an emphasis on WPA and post-War American artists, is located in Palm Beach County.