Ian Stephenson (11 January 1934 – 25 August 2000) was an English

abstract artist Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

. Stephenson trained at King's College, DurhamIan Stephenson Biography
New Art Centre along with

Noel Forster Noel Armstrong Forster (15 June 1932 – 7 December 2007) was a British artist who trained at King's College Newcastle a part of Durham University, graduating in 1957. Forster was born in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland and attended to Gosfo ...

and had his first show in London at the New Vision Centre in 1958, with a solo show at The New Art Centre in 1962. An exhibition of his work was exhibited at the

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...

in 1977 and his work can be found in the collections of the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

and

Whitworth Art Gallery The Whitworth is an art gallery in Manchester, England, containing about 55,000 items in its collection. The gallery is located in Whitworth Park and is part of the University of Manchester. In 2015, the Whitworth reopened after it was transfo ...

. His work was also featured in the 1966 film,

Blow-Up ''Blowup'' (sometimes styled as ''Blow-up'' or ''Blow Up'') is a 1966 mystery drama thriller film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and produced by Carlo Ponti. It was Antonioni's first entirely English-language film, and stars David Hemming ...

by Michelangelo Antonioni. He returned to King's College, Durham to teach with

Victor Pasmore Edwin John Victor Pasmore, CH, CBE (3 December 190823 January 1998) was a British artist. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life Pasmore was born in Chelsham, Surrey, on 3 December 1908. He ...

and Richard Hamilton. Since his death, his work has been exhibited at the

De La Warr Pavilion The De La Warr Pavilion is a grade I listed building, located on the seafront at Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex, on the south coast of England. The Modernist and International Style building was designed by the architects Erich Mendelsohn and S ...

Bexhill on Sea Bexhill-on-Sea (often shortened to Bexhill) is a seaside town and civil parish situated in the county of East Sussex in South East England. An ancient town and part of the Non-metropolitan district, local government district of Rother District ...

and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. Stephenson's work was characteristically made by splattering droplets of paint onto paper or canvas and repeating this with many different colours. Because the layers are applied quite widely the effect created in the finished paintings is determined not only by the colour and quantity of the spots of paint, but by the order in which they were applied. In September 2010, Stephenson and five other British artists including

Howard Hodgkin Sir Gordon Howard Eliott Hodgkin (6 August 1932 – 9 March 2017) was a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction. Early life Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932 in Hammersmith, ...

, John Walker,

John Hoyland John Hoyland RA (12 October 1934 – 31 July 2011) was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.

Patrick Caulfield Patrick Joseph Caulfield, (29 January 1936 – 29 September 2005), was an English painter and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of photorealism within a pared-down scene. Examples of his work are ''Po ...

and R.B. Kitaj were included in an exhibition entitled ''The Independent Eye: Contemporary British Art From the Collection of Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie,'' at the

Yale Center for British Art Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...

. In his obituary, published in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' the painter Andrew Forge described his work as:Obituary: Ian Stephenson
Nicholas Usherwood ''The Independent'' September 11, 2000

"Pictures of nothing which are about everything. Pictures of a limitless scale which are pictures of minute particulars. Countless happenings in time present as one simultaneous expression. Emptiness filled with matter. Solids filled with space."

References

External links

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Works held at the Tate

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stephenson, Ian Academics of Durham University 20th-century English painters English male painters Abstract painters 1934 births 2000 deaths English contemporary artists Royal Academicians Alumni of King's College, Newcastle 20th-century English male artists