The master of the shadow

The painter-turned-renowned printmaker’s light shone but fleetingly, and he has been overshadowed by his friend David Hockney, yet Norman Stevens left a luminous legacy that deserves greater recognition,

- John McEwen

THE death of Norman Stevens, at the age of only 51 in 1988, was a great loss not only to art, as a forthcoming exhibition, book and catalogue raisonné will demonstrate, but to anyone who came across him; his Times obituary stressed his concern for ‘a friend in difficulties, an artist neglected, or for the public good’.

His widow, Jean, remembers his ‘great sense of humour’ and his love of gardens and conservation: ‘He was always getting people together to protest about old buildings being knocked down.’ At Rugby Mansions, London W14, where the Stevenses lived latterly, he turned the communal backyard into a garden, with a fountain by Ainsley Yule and wall sculpture by Nigel Hall; it is named in his memory.

Catalogues raisonné tend towards practicality, but the one produced by the 100-year-old Redfern Gallery in London W1, which Stevens joined in 1977 and which represents his estate, is as pleasing to a book lover as a specialist. Most of the 108 prints show the ‘charm and mystery of the English countryside’, as Michael Healey of the Redfern writes in his comprehensive introductory essay, Master of Shadow. It is an apt title, because printmaking as an art and shadow as a subject became Stevens’s obsession.