1968 - Had a one-child show at 8 years old a local bank sponsored by a Jewish Temple in the Bronx. The paintings, a series on the Holocaust, were donated to the Jewish Holocaust Museum of Art in Brooklyn.
1972 - Steve's Uncle Negotiated a deal with Macy's to paint dog and cat faces onto customers rocks during the Pet Rock fad. Steve was chosen, along with nine between Japanese students.
1974 - Awarded a summer scholarship at Parson's School of Design for fine arts and design.
1976 - Participates in a group graffiti show at the Whitney Museum represented by the Cherry Street Gallery.
1978 - 80 - Enrolls in the School of Visual Arts. Meets Andy Warhol and becomes an assistant at The Factory. Designs theme parties for Studio 54. Exhibits in nightclubs including Studio 54, Underground, Magique, Zippers, Heartbreak, and Rags. Sells artwork through nightclubs to clients including Calvin Klein, Elizabeth Taylor, and Steve Rubell.
1981 - Exhibits an antique auto series at two Citibank locations. Citibank purchases the series for their private collection. Creates a book jacket for Debbie Harry of Blondie for Avon Books. Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising Agency purchases artwork for their private collection. Participates in a group show at Club 57 with Keith Haring.
1982 - Shows at the Air Gallery in London, White Freuds and Fiorucci's. Creates TV graphics for NBC's Saturday Night Live. Collaborates on Saturday Night Live's famous Pop Art opening. Graduates from School of Visual Arts second in his class.
1983 - 84 - Exhibits Sex & Rock and Roll in a show at Off Centre Gallery, Money at Common wealth Gallery, and Red, White & Blue at Kelley Gallery.
1986 - 88 - Forms SAK Studio featuring pop art multiples, silk-screen on canvas. Showings at Main Fine Art, The Gallery, Edinburgh College of Art, Zanzibar Club, and Smith Gallery. Creates a memorial series portrait of Andy Warhol to send to friends and clients. Moves to Fifth Avenue offices as client portraiture business increases.
1989 - Completes unfinished portraits for Andy Warhol's clients. Opens Art Studio to bring awareness to inner city problems. Begins city-wide campaign for AIDS awareness with Trojan signs embellished with skeletons, silk-screened onto plastic. Carter Wallace sponsors a one-man show and helps finance the Trojan signs to raise money at an auction for Amfar. Creates 5,000 buttons on AIDS awareness to give away in Greenwich Village.
1990 - Paints his first Racial Harmony mural in Harlem. Art Studio has a sold out show at the Loft Gallery in Tokyo. Paints portraits of three homeless people for Transportation Display, Inc. (TDI). The portraits are shown in 46 cities on bus billboards - the campaign raises $4.72 million to benefit the homeless.
1991 - Paints a boxing series signed by Joe Frazier to raise money for the Police Athletic League. Moves to a brownstone in Chelsea. Paints three portraits of Mickey Mantle for Mantle's Restaurant uptown. Continues to paint 35 Racial Harmony Murals, has staff of 37 guys assisting Steve starts selling art painted on garbage can lids as an art statement.
1992 - Completes 55 Racial Harmony murals in the NYC area with Malcolm X images. Appears on Fox TV, MTV, radio stations and in magazines to speak on racial harmony. Creates a Racial Harmony series piece which is collected by Spike Lee and sold to Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Dee Williams, Eddie Murphy and Larry Mullen (of U2). Art Studio's representation grows to almost 100 fine art dealers around the world. Throws art show parties on NYC subway cars to raise money for AIDS victims. Creates the first and only AIDS Memorial in NYC. Paints a Meals on Wheels mural on the walls of the famous Spago Restaurant to bring attention to this problem and gain support for Meals on Wheels. The mural is 600 feet by 20 feet, with 7 foot long food products that move with the help of a motor and a conveyor belt, facing Sunset Boulevard, with over 100,000 cars a week passing by.
Accepts Underground Artist of the Year award. Work is sold 6% higher than expected at Christie's. Creates giant Batman canvases, rugs and furniture for Arnold Scaasi, who learned to read from the Sunday comics, for his exhibit at the charity event for Literacy Volunteers of New York at ABC Carpets. Drapes red fabric over the letter "D" of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles as a cryptic remembrance of everyone who has died from AIDS.
1993 - Paints four portraits of Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff, his wife, for Spago in Los Angeles. Creates Comic Pop Art which is becoming his most successful series.
1994 - Creating a portrait for Larry Mullen of U2, who is a collector of Art Studio's work. The portrait was autographed by the band members and proceeds were donated to the Ireland Food Shelter. Art Studio, while keeping a NYC office, is opening a factory space in California to continue painting Comic Pop Art, creating customized Harley Davidsons with fiberglass sculptures, and furniture and fashion designs silk-screened onto the fabric.
1995 - Steve moved to his new location off Melrose in LA and opened his own Art Factory call Art Studio. Unlike Andy Warhol who hired socially accepted children and actors as his assistants, Steve Kaufman, a man born in the harsh world of New York City's South Bronx, hires LA's toughest gang members, straight from prison. On a good Monday, seven squad cars will be at his Art Studio bringing gang kids in hand cuffs to be interviewed by Kaufman. The kids build wooden frames for Kaufman's paintings for his clients which include 173 Warner Brothers stores and 600 galleries nationwide. Worked with Martin Lawrence Gallery, the same gallery that represented Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and many other past and present artists. Created limited edition of Beethoven that sold out in 2 1/2 months, created Marilyn Monroe limited edition that broke all gallery records in sold out editions. Created Muhammad Ali's portrait (500 piece edition) that sold out in 30 days. Created three limited editions for Warner Brothers and was the first artist to form a bridge between Marvel Comics (Spiderman and the Hulk) and DC Comics (Superman and Batman) in fine arts. Kaufman has created large originals with Stan Lee, the creator of Marvel Comics, signing each painting with Kaufman's signature.
1996 - His trip to Japan all 16 shows were sold out. Wrote his first movie script "Kill ‘Em" & three TV show pilots. Shows his art to Ralph Lauren to use his art in his clothes. And Ralph said they were too wild.
Steve has hired over 100 kids from LA prisons. Steve opens his first web page.
Created John Travolta's portrait for Mr. Travolta's home.
Created Paintings for Warner Brothers and Martin Lawrence.
Created official 1996 Olympic Ali Paintings and Boxing gloves each of which were autographed by Ali. These paintings are now exhibited in Muhammad Ali Boxing museums.
1997 - Working on his new movie "Kill ‘Em" which he wrote and intends to direct and act in, is a mixture of Pulp Fiction and Goodfellows meets the Godfather.
Listed in over 69 Websites on the Internet. Art displayed in numerous amount of magazines. Television shows such as: "Tom Arnold Show" , "The Practice".
To expand my multi-media creative centers from 7,000 to 200,000 sq.ft.; this is where we will be creating fine arts, sculptures and art movies.
In 1997, U2 will be going on a worldwide tour. Negotiated to have a major role in the design of stage, video and the overall look of the tour.
Commissioned to create Campbell Soup paintings of cans and jars for Campbell Soup 100th year anniversary.
Press convention at the Andy Warhol foundation for the release on Campbell Soup paintings.
Creates a sold out Cuban Cigar painting edition that even Videl Castro has a set of paintings.
Frank Sinatra limited edition Portrait for Mr. Sinatra personally. Everyone at LA Art Expo was WOW when Mr. Kaufman showed up with two hand painted Harley Davidson's. (1) Cambell's Soup (2) Cohiba Cuban Cigar HarleyDavidson.
1998 - Without giving away some of his surprises for 1998, Steve said it was indeed another productive year. His movie "Kill ‘Em" released to film festivals globally. Start on a new film "Straight - Up" which is a film about LA Gang Lifestyle. Steve and his crew will load up and take all the business out to the things differently how would they. This series will be released on MTV as well as HBO.
Create paintings of new and old one hundred dollar bills. Steve says that this is art at it's finest.
Superheroes edition of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and several other comic pop images. These images will be dedicated to Roy Lichesten.
Dennis Rodman will be created on Canvas as well as several artistic basketballs.
John Travolta and other celebrity actors portraits.
A tribute to Princess Diana's charity in reference to Diana's relief fund.
Commissioned by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam - Portrait of Van Gogh
Produced Barbie, Picasso, The Rat Pack, New York, New York, Scarface with Al Pacino, and The GodFather Original which was signed by Al Pacino
2000- Steve launches a tour of Art in the United States and appears in person atContemporary Fine Art in Pennsylvania on October 19, 2000
