Nothing seemed extraordinary about the conversations Jacob Houston had with three separate bicyclists who visited his studio during a Washington County studio tour a few summers ago.
So when he received a letter a year later from a man who introduced himself as curator of The Hyde Collection—a bicyclist who stopped and chatted with Houston —and asked if Houston might be interested in an exhibition at the museum, the 26-year-old artist was in disbelief.
“It was almost unreal,” he said. “It didn’t make sense.I didn’t expect my stuff to be in The Hyde.”
But this month, 23 of Houston’s paintings are on exhibit in the museum’s Hoopes Gallery. “A Magical World: The Art of Jacob Houston” runs through June 23.
When he was 12 years old, Houston entered a painting in the Washington County Fair Farm exhibition and won first prize. In the years since, he has exhibited his art at venues that include Gallery 668 in Battenville, New York; Lapham Gallery, Samantha’s, 6 Pine Street Gallery, and Gallery 99 in Glens Falls; Saratoga Arts Center in Saratoga Springs; Milne Library in Williamstown, Mass.; Greenwich Free Library and the Washington County Farm Museum in Greenwich; and more
“Jacob’s open-hearted, joyful view of the world captivated me immediately,” said Jonathan Canning, director of curatorial affairs and programming at The Hyde.
Houston won first prize at Lapham Gallery’s first LARAC 120 degrees Intercollegiate Art Competition, competing with artists from colleges throughout the region. His art has also been exhibited in a three-person show at LARAC and in a solo exhibition at Southern Vermont Arts Center.
Houston is mostly self-taught and paints the beauty he finds in the world around him, what he encounters in his travels, and places he can only dream about. “I paint something I find interesting,” he said. “I might want to travel there, or I have been there and like it a lot.”
“He treats it as a regular career,” Claire Houston, his mother, said, describing how her son works Monday through Friday at the family’s dining room table. She said Jacob’s love of art and talent for it were evident early on. His evolution as an artist is chronicled in a series of albums she created and proudly displays in the den of their family home.
“When I was 5, I did it for fun,” he said. “But still, nothing is better. Art’s always the first thing.”