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