Norman Stevens ARA
Selected Prints
26 February - 25 May 2014
In the Tennant Gallery and Council Room, Burlington House
Tuesday – Friday 10am–4pm
Saturday – Sunday 10am–6pm
Closed Monday
This exhibition has now closed.
Friends of the RA go free
We present works by master printmaker Norman Stevens exploring the landscape and built environment.
This spring we present the much admired prints of Norman Stevens ARA, an artist who originally trained as a painter alongside John Loker, David Hockney RA and David Oxtoby in the 1950s at Bradford College of Art.
A master of the medium, Stevens taught himself printmaking in the early 1970s and in the process, found an art form that perfectly suited his meticulous and subtle approach. Exploring the landscape and built environment, his prints make use of colour, light and shade to powerful and often haunting effect. Human presence is always suggested but never shown, a quality that the art critic, William Packer, has likened to a ‘game of hide-and-seek with the real world’.
At the heart of the exhibition are important groups of prints including Stevens’ depictions of Venetian blinds and ‘clapboard’ houses, his distinctive images of Stonehenge and his captivating views of English formal gardens. From his first black and white etchings to the large-scale prints he produced in the 1980s, discover the work of an artist who developed an international reputation for his technically brilliant and beguiling prints.
Gallery
Levens Hall Garden, 1985
Clapboard House with Fronds and Architectural French Curve, 1974
Morning, 1973
Black Walnut Tree, 21st October 1987, 1988
Construction Company, 1983
The Stilt Garden, Hidcote, 1981
Painswick, Moonlight, 1979
The Fox, Knighsthayes, 1982
Stonehenge: Homage to John Constable, 1976
Stevens plays his delicate and allusive game of hide-and-seek with the real world
William Packer
From the blog
Annette Wickham discovers more about the life and work of Norman Stevens ARA
Certain exhibitions are especially rewarding to put together, and Norman Stevens ARA: Selected Prints is definitely one of them. Not only has the project had close input from the artist’s family and friends, but it also feels long overdue.
In his lifetime, Norman Stevens was a respected artist whose prints and paintings were widely praised by those in the know. They can be found in major collections like the Tate and MoMA, New York, but he never received the broader public recognition that his work deserved. Elected as an Academician in 1983, Stevens died only five years later at the early age of 51 and never had a one-man show here at the RA.
Also on
London Original Print Fair 2014
With some 50 international exhibitors, the four-day show offers a wonderful opportunity to see and buy original prints, from the earliest Renaissance woodcuts to the latest editions by contemporary masters.
Showcasing galleries, dealers and print publishers from across the UK, Europe and USA, LOPF is the perfect place to engage with experts and artists.
This year to coincide with Renaissance Impressions in The Sackler Wing of Galleries, a number of old master exhibitors at LOPF feature chiaroscuro woodcuts on their stands. All prints are for sale, by artists such as Rembrandt, Goya and Picasso to Francis Bacon, David Hockney RA and Grayson Perry RA.