Steve Smulka (b. 1949, Detroit, Michigan) attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, studying with Chuck Close, among others. Upon completing his MFA at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he moved back to New York. Soon after, Smulka began to focus his skills on capturing the elusiveness of light through glass. He says: "My intention for the paintings is not to be photorealistic but to leave a trace of the artist's hand and a subtle record of brushstrokes; to create a feeling of space and atmosphere that is more tangible than a photograph. I'm not concerned with just copying a photograph. I always intensify what I see. This careful observation of light and shadow is made more intense by the larger than life-size scale of the painted objects. Finding beauty in the details is one of the main inspirations for my paintings."
Smulka is a two-time recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions across the United States and Europe and is included in important corporate, public, and private collections in North and South America, Europe, Japan, and Australia.
He currently lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.