About

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 …