Stephen Houseman

Stephen Houseman (20 December 1936 – 22 March 2018) was an English thinker, writer and artist. He was born in Harrow, Middlesex, attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood and read Modern Languages at St John's College, Oxford, graduating in 1958. After working in London as a computer programmer, he moved in 1971 to Cromer on the North Norfolk coast and devoted the rest of his life to thinking and writing about the problems of animal and human evolution, seeking answers to the questions 'of who and what we are and where we have come from'. His ideas are summarised in The Origin Of Us (2021). Houseman first exhibited at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1969. As a watercolourist following in the tradition of the Norwich School of Painters and John Sell Cotman (1782-1842), he exhibited widely in Norwich and London in the 1970s and 80s. A retrospective exhibition of his work is due to open in the Hostry of Norwich Cathedral in December 2022.