Harold Stevenson (March 11, 1929 – October 21, 2018).
On this anniversary of Harold Stevenson’s death, I like to imagine he is everywhere that is good again. Looking back to a single year, 1962, we see what an international pop star Harold Stevenson was.
1962 Exhibitions
- 1962 Obsession and Fantasy, Robert Fraser Gallery, London England
- 1962 Le Sensuel fantastique, Iris Clert Gallery, Paris France
- 1962 XVIII Salon de Mai, Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris France
- 1962 New Realists, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York USA
- 1962 Piccola Biennale, Venice Italy
“This year’s Venice Biennale was enlivened by… [Harold Stevenson] the spectator finds himself not only transfixed but involved…We are compelled to see the ordinary through new eyes when it is enlarged beyond all normal experience”
(George Butcher, The Guardian) as quoted in Art in Community: The Harold Stevenson Collection. Now available on Amazon.
Meanwhile, back in the USA, a number of artists that would be included in group shows with Harold Stevenson were on exhibit in New York City: John Chamberlain and Frank Stella at Castelli Gallery, Willem de Kooning at Stone, Adolph Gottlieb at Sidney Janis, Grace Hartigan at Jackson, Rene Magritte at Bodley to name a few.
For the Love of Books and Andy Warhol – The Bodley Gallery
Harold loved books and hung out at the bookstore above the Bodley Gallery from 1949 – 1959. Harold asserts [citation needed] he talked Alexendar Iolas and David Mann into giving Andy Warhol his first show. “I was there all the time, I guess I wore them down to give Andy his show.” Essentially, Stevenson became a de facto employee, gleefully helping anyone in search of a book. Harold moved to Paris France in 1959, but the Bodley was still selling books. On the shelves in 1962 were: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Harold’s first extant painting is a bird, Painted Bunting (1936). It was recently on exhibit at the Museum of Red River.
Other books that arrived in 1962 included Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown, Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, The Prize by Irving Wallace, The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone, and The Reivers by William Faulkner. Reivers would win the Pulitzer in 1963.
Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun was playing at the 78th St. Playhouse. Broadway star, Ruth Ford, co-wrote the play. She was a close friend to Harold Stevenson and was a patron for him whilst they both lived in The Dakota apartments during the 1970s.
At the cinema, West Side Story was dancing away at the Rivoli on Broadway.
Here’s our 5-minute cinema for Harold.
On this anniversary of Harold Stevenson’s death, I like to imagine he is everywhere that is good again.
Harold Stevenson (March 11, 1929 – October 21, 2018).
