Drawing and painting became a routine part of life for Bruce Horn while growing up in Circleville, Ohio. The art instruction he received and the visits to art museums as a youngster were important influences. As a college student, his creative work was dominated by the printmaking processes. Bruce received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Miami University in 1968 and worked for a brief time as a package designer. His studies continued at Ohio State University where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1970. The abstract artwork he created during the intervening years was executed primarily with color intaglio techniques. After returning to oil painting and a representational style in 1985, he took additional classes through the Scottsdale Artists' School and the Fechin Institute.

A career as an art educator began for Horn in 1970 at Blackburn College in Illinois. He is a Professor of Art, Emeritus at Northern Arizona University where he took a faculty position in 1972. The painting program became his primary responsibility but he also taught a variety of courses in etching, lithography, serigraphy, woodcut, drawing, composition and color theory. His artwork has been included in over two hundred professional exhibitions. In addition to local and regional shows, artwork has been displayed in national, juried exhibitions throughout the United States. Color intaglio prints were also included in numerous international juried shows. Bruce has frequent solo exhibits and his artwork has been included in many private and public art collections.

While talking about his ideas and influences, Bruce Horn states “My artwork has, quite naturally, become transformed from an essentially, cerebral activity to something more process oriented. There is an innate deception in the mental justification we use to validate art. For me, the preoccupation with content and innovation in art eventually gave way to the simple, intuitive act of engaging the creative process. My motivation comes from the humbling challenge of painting the subtle and elusive effects of light. Paintings that display a skilled, yet irreverently playful manipulation of paint and brush are of particular interest to me; they are evidence of a unique, creative moment. The virtuoso paintings of Anders Zorn, Antonio Mancini, Joaquin Sorolla and John Singer Sargent are often flawlessly causal. Their paintings effortlessly seem to combine the best of Impressionist color and light with the best of academic drawing and painting technique. They convey something authentic about the creative process as it relates to real life in fleeting time.”

A retrospective exhibition of Horn’s paintings, prints and drawings was hosted by Northern Arizona University in 2001. Additional solo exhibits have included "Paris and Normandy" at the Hudgens Gallery of Fine Art in 2006, "Silent Music" at Tanglewood Fine Art in 2007 and "Points of View" at the Mountain Artists Gallery in 2008. Recently, paintings have been included in the Arizona Plein Air Painters exhibit at the Phippen Museum of Western Art in Prescott, Arizona and the 80th National Exhibition of the American Artists Professional League in New York. Bruce lives with his wife Pat in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he paints as a full-time artist.