Having already said Steve might be a fan of Van Gogh, it occurred to me recently that someone like Steve...
who grew up small and disabled, in Brooklyn,
frequenting the big nightlife hubs (of downtown, Sands St. BK and Coney Island)
who later worked with the kind of showgirls who would've been around in those areas ^
and/or who may have been a commercial artist himself
...would really vibe with someone like Toulouse Lautrec.
He was himself a visibly disabled artist, did commercial art (art nouveau, a style the Nazis hated), embraced queer imagery (in his famous 'bed' series), and was a big fan of working class Parisian showgirls and what Terry Pratchett calls 'Ladies of Negotiable Affection'. 😂
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I also think Steve would like the social realism of (husband of Frida Kahlo) Diego Rivera. But particularly the fresco Man at the Crossroads:
Which was originally slated to be installed in the lobby of RCA Rockefeller Center in New York City in 1933.
It was criticised for having 'anti-capitalist propaganda' imagery in it (to which Rivera added a portrait of Lenin, LOL) ...and the Rockefellers decided to have it sabotaged / covered up before it could be finished.
There was a big public protest about this, in the New York art community. Steve would've been 15 at the time, but I imagine he might have participated, and would be delighted to find that the piece had been reproduced by Rivera, and that he still gets to see it in the future.
Ok but Steve catching Maria drawing a butterfly or something and getting all excited and happy and Maria trying to hide it because she's not as good as Steve and Steve demanding that she finish it so he can hang it in his art studio
