Blue on Gray

Will Henry Stevens’s art career began in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1901 with an education from the Art Academy and a stint as a tile designer for the famous Rookwood Pottery. He soon left for the Art Students League in New York, where he studied under Impressionist William Merritt Chase. From then on, he became interested in a variety of media and styles ranging from realistic to abstract. He would continue to maintain his relationship with New York Modernists for the rest of his career.

Stevens joined the faculty of Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans in 1921 and taught there until 1948. While there, he frequently painted the lush Louisiana landscape, but he traveled to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee every summer. Stevens taught at a few different Southern art colonies, including Black Mountain College. He would grow to prefer working with pastels, composing abstract compositions inspired by Chinese silks, Transcendentalist poetry, and the natural world.