Cicero Greathouse [April 20, 1950 – October 16, 2019]
Cicero Greathouse, artist, poet, mentor, gentle man, and citizen of the world, died October 16 after a battle with cancer. He was 69.
Greathouse was a prominent abstract painter with studios in Orlando, FL and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He was born in Fukuoka, Japan to a military family. Florida became his home when his father retired from the U.S. Army and moved the family from Heidelberg, Germany to Orlando.
After serving in the US Marine Corps, during which time he was wounded and received a Purple Heart, Cicero returned to Orlando. He then pursued his lifelong interest in art, earning an Associate of Arts degree from Valencia College and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He was a prolific painter and his professional history was broad. He exhibited his work widely in the Southeast U.S., in Europe and in Mexico. His work is included in numerous public and private collections.
Greathouse drew inspiration from the vast Florida landscape and the coastal marshes. "The landscape of Florida, specifically the river flats of the St. Johns River and the coastal mangroves, has long been a reference point for my painting," he once told an interviewer. "I try to capture phenomena like a mirage over a pasture or the way light and color shimmer over a highway — not in a representational way, but as a visual metaphor. The painting is not the landscape explicitly but rather its allusion."
During Cicero's thirty-year career in art, he was the recipient of artist's grants, locally and state wide. His work was represented in exhibitions internationally and in the US. Although not an architect, he designed several homes for himself and friends. Prior to his retirement in 2005, Cicero was a Production Designer and Senior Art Director for Walt Disney Imagineering.
Cicero Greathouse is survived by his wife of twenty-five years, Qurentia "Que" Throm.
A celebration of Cicero's life will be announced for a later date.
A scholarship in the arts will be established in Cicero's name at Valencia College, Valencia Foundation, 1768 Park Center Drive, Orlando FL 32835.