●John Cecil Stephenson
'Diatonic'1954
Oil on board
36 x 28 ins (91.4 x 71.1 cms)
Signed, inscribed and dated 1954 verso
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In 1954 Stephenson was the Head of Art, teaching in the architectural department of the Northern Polytechnic in the Holloway Road (1922-1955) and also exhibiting with the London Group. His compositions were based on geometric principles and considering his teaching post during this period these works have the combined authority of both his academic tutoring and his painterly influences.
Stephenson had worked for some time on older ideas based on construction, an ethos in which science, art and architecture were in step with each other and with the modern world. Diatonic is an excellent example of these processes realised on a two dimensional surface and he continued in this vein for most of the 1950's. By the 1960s however his work became freer, employing greater impasto and a more liberated use of palette knife.
Exhibited:
Memorial Exhibition of Cecil Stephenson (1889-1965) the Drian Galleries, London, catalogue no. 23, November to December 1966
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