Painting: Design for the Festival of Britain

Location

Country: Pakistan
City: Islamabad
Place: British High Commission

Born in County Durham, John Cecil Stephenson studied in Darlington, Leeds and London. Stephenson was a member of the small group of artists who pioneered abstract art in England in the 1930s; a group which included Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Edward Wadsworth. Although Stephenson is not as well known as many of these contemporaries, they held him in high esteem, and his large painting Dynastic occupied a full-page in the publication produced to accompany the ground-breaking Circle exhibition of 1937. A lecturer in architectural design for nearly 20 years at the Northern Polytechnic, London, Stephenson regularly exhibited his work and completed several major commissions until his death in 1965. He worked in obscurity for most of his life, holding his first one-man exhibition in 1960 at the age of 61, but was one of the first artists in Britain to develop a completely abstract style.

Places

Subjects

abstract, fair/festival/carnival

Materials & Techniques

canvas laid down on board, egg tempera, tempera painting

Artist

John Cecil Stephenson (1889 - 1961)

Title

Painting: Design for the Festival of Britain

Date

1950

Medium

Egg tempera on canvas laid down on board

Dimensions

height: 82.00 cm, width: 61.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Sotheby's, 27 November 1996

Inscription

verso: CECIL STEPHENSON 1950 / EGG TEMPERA / 24" x 32"

Provenance

Artist's studio sale; from which sale purchased by Fischer Fine Art; sold through Sotheby's, London, 'Modern British and Irish Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture' sale, on 27 November 1996 (Lot 71); from which sale purchased by the Government Art Collection

GAC number

17231