£400

Signed with initials
Red chalk
49 x 29 cms

Provenance: Marjorie Guthrie
£400

Signed with initials
Pencil
29 x 49 cms

Provenence: Marjorie Guthrie
£1,500

Silk screen print produced in collaboration with Kathleen Guthrie, circa 1950, after a Stephenson gouache dated 1938 (of identicle size).

10 x 8 ins.
Sold

Unframed
Signed with initials and dated, 1944
Pen and ink and grey wash with blue wash highlights
17 3/4 x 12 5/8 in. (45 x 32 cm.)

Provenance: Marjorie Guthrie
Sold

Unframed
Oil on paper
6 1/2 x 5 1/8 ins. (16.5 x 13 cm.)
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist's family
Literature: John Cecil Stephenson, The Fine Art Society in association with Paul Liss, October-November 2007, pp 59-60.

Condition: suface dirt and mild foxing

This abstract is one of a series of small sketches made during World War II as preparation for larger works (materials being in short supply), which Stephenson executed in the 1950s. They were stimulated by the devastation resulting from the bombing of London (also recorded figuratively by Stephenson during this period). Stephenson made his first abstract paintings around 1932. In 1934 he exhibited with the 7 & 5 Society, along with Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and John Piper. Though not today as well known as many of his contemporaries he was one of the key figures in the development of abstract art in Britain in the mid twentieth century.

Thumbnail panels:

Cecil Stephenson 1889-1965

Painter, born in Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham. He studied at Darlington Technical College, 1906-08, at the Leeds School of Art, 1908-14, the RCA, 1914-18, and Slade, 1918. Between 1915 and 1918 he did war work, making tools. In 1919 he took on Sickert's studio, 6 Mall Studios, Hampstead, where he was later joined by Herbert Read, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. From 1922 until 1955 he was Head of Art Teaching in the Architectural Department, Northern Polytechnic, Holloway Road. In 1932 he began making his first abstract works, exhibiting during the next decade in many abstract and constructive shows in England, France and the USA. In 1934 he exhibited with the 7&5 Society, along with the likes of Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and John Piper. During World War II he returned partly to figurative work, making paintings of the Blitz. From the 1950s he returned to large abstract paintings, realising many of the abstract compositions he had sketched out on a small scale in the previous decade, when materials had been in short supply. In 1951 he made a l0 ¥ 30 ft. fluorescent paint mural for the Festival of Britain, and began working with ply glass for murals. In 1958 he suffered three strokes, which left him unable to move or talk. Partly for this reason he is today less well-known than many of his contemporaries, but he was one of the key figures in the development of abstract art in Britain. He is represented in the collection of the Tate and internationally.

Selected Literature Cecil Stephenson 1889-1965, Fischer Fine Art, London, 1976.

Simon Guthrie, The Life and Art of John Cecil Stephenson: A Victorian Painter's Journey to Abstract Expressionism, Cartmel Press Associates, 1997.