Ian Stephenson 1934-2000

Ian Stephenson, alongside Hodgkin and Hockney, was one of the most important British painters of his generation.

Stephenson was born in County Durham and studied at King's College, University of Durham. He later taught there alongside Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton. Later, as a Studio Demonstrator at King's College, Newcastle, he worked with Richard Hamilton and Victor Pasmore on their influential 'Basic Design' course, relishing its radicalism.

His first solo exhibition in London was held at the New Art Centre in 1962, where he continued to show throughout the 1960s. Major exhibitions followed, including a solo show at the Hayward Gallery in 1977. His work is represented in collections such as Tate, the Arts Council. the Whitworth Art Gallery, and the British Council. Stephenson's paintings attracted wider attention when Michelangelo Antonioni selected them for inclusion in the 1966 film 'Blow-Up', after noticing their shifting effects of focus and scale during a studio visit. After his death in 2000, his work continued to be exhibited, notably at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea and at Baltic, Gateshead, in 2006.

His works were regularly described as 'the most beautiful being made in this country' when they were first seen in London in the 1960s (as quoted in Joanna Drew's introduction to the catalogue for Stephenson's exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 1977). Mesmerising and immersive, they are made up of thousands of tiny dots of paint, each individual and distinct, yet together forming constellations that float over their surfaces, whether canvas or paper.

Stephenson was born and brought up in Northumberland, and something of that county's big skies and uncertain boundaries seems to underlie his work. As a young man, he had painted topographical watercolours of the North-East coast with his father, an amateur painter and journeyman.