The natural, spiritual, and transcendental of Will Henry Stevens
Will Henry Stevens, Abstract Mississippi River, 1942, pastel on paper, 26 x 34.25, Roger Houston Ogden Collection, Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Artist Will Henry Stevens (American, 1881-1949) was a pioneer of Modernism in America — especially in the South, where he lived and worked for over 25 years. Surrounded by streams, woodlands, trails, and other extensive vistas associated with the Southern landscape, he developed an intimate bond with these locations that informed his art and reflected his spiritual attitude towards nature. In 1912 after one of his numerous visits to New York City, Stevens passed through Washington D.C. and visited the Freer Gallery of Art where he encountered and became entranced by Chinese Sung Dynasty (960-1279 CE) painting in particular, and Asian art in general. He delved into Asian, especially Taoist, philosophy and resolved not merely to observe nature but also to understand its underlying principles.
Stevens’ intense appreciation of and reverence for nature was also influenced by the naturalistic and often transcendental writings of American authors: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Walt Whitman (1819-1892), and Mark Twain (1835-1910). Rivers were especially fertile subject matter for the artist,
Rivers have meant very much to me…inland rivers. I remember being charmed by Huckleberry Finn.
If only one could get that spirit into painting!
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Stevens drew and painted simultaneously in two styles: one abstract, influenced by artists Paul Klee (Swiss-born German, 1879-1940) and Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866-1944), and the other a more traditional, representational style. His selected style depended on his mood and choice of expression, with both styles reflecting his deep love of nature. He easily translated the geometry he saw in nature into non-objective abstractions. As the view recedes in his landscape art, elements of the composition become increasingly murky and obscure resembling his non-objective compositions. Similarly, his abstractions are characterized by a repetition of basic motifs that give his works a serial quality; triangles float as planes in space to simulate mountains and shapes of animals and human faces are frequently camouflaged in the composition. He usually combined a range of media, including oils, inks, watercolors, and pastels within a single work and often selecting papers with slightly rough surfaces that allowed him to gain additional color effects.
By the 1930s, many painters in the US had begun to explore the possibilities of abstract art, and many had eliminated representational subject matter altogether. Generally, when artists moved from realistic styles of painting to completely abstract modes they did so with an almost philosophical determination, and indeed the debate among artists, critics, curators and dealers at times was quite heated. However, Stevens chose to remain outside aesthetic arguments and simultaneously created elegant landscapes and mesmerizing abstractions.
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Stevens was born in Vevay, Indiana (located in the Ohio River Valley) in 1881. As a young painter he studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy and the Art Students League in New York City. While living briefly in New York, he had several solo shows and worked for and with such artists as Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917) and American Impressionists, Jonas Lie (1880-1940) and Van Dearing Perrine (1868-1955). In 1921 Stevens moved to New Orleans, where he taught art at Sophie Newcomb College (later becoming part of Tulane University) until retiring in 1948. During his teaching years, Stevens spent the summers in the remote mountains of North Carolina and east Tennessee. In both places, New Orleans and the mountains, he immersed himself in working directly from nature, providing a contrasting environment to the nature and landscape of southeastern Louisiana. He became known for his exceptional creation of color specific to each locale primarily through the medium of pastel. After retiring Stevens returned to Vevay to concentrate solely on his art making; sadly, he lost a battle with leukemia the following year.
Will Henry Stevens, Untitled, pastel, acrylic, tempera on paper, 18.125 x 16 in., Hindman Auction, 2018
Will Henry Stevens mined nature through art, literature, and spirituality. He cultivated the etherial nature of the pastel medium. The combination of both practices produced artworks with a bold handling of deeply saturated color and careful assembly of steadily expanding forms in balanced composition while, straddling the divergent styles and methods of representation and abstraction of the early 20th century. As Stevens studied nature to understand its underlying principles, I encourage you to do the same in the nature that surrounds you and then take those thoughts and feelings and lose yourself in his enchanting artworks.
Have any questions or comments about Will Henry Stevens, Modernism, artists in the South, or any part of western art history? Contact me and let’s talk all things art.
Yours in art & forever an art geek,
Marisa
