Stephen Jacobson was born in Manchester in 1946. He studied at Manchester and Liverpool colleges of art before moving to London to undertake a post-graduate course at the Royal Academy Schools. Since graduating in 1973 he has continued to paint and exhibit in London and in galleries throughout the south west. In 2008, Stephen was elected a member of the Royal West of England Academy and he served as vice president from 2013 to 2019. In 2017, he co-curated an exhibition at the Academy on the theme of ‘Air’. He was elected a member of the Bath Society of Artists in 2017.  

He lives and works in Portishead where the vastness of the skies are a revelation to him and feature frequently in his vivid surreal paintings. Stephen’s brother is the writer Howard Jacobson.