American artist Harold Stevenson figure drawing is his found beauty in the object many find fault with. Too fat, too thin, too wrinkled, too unattractive. Stevenson presented the anatomy of human body parts. To enhance figure drawing, he magnified his studies onto large scale canvas. He gave us 64 Times Life Size . This piece illustrates the beauty of the unassuming thumb. The Eye of Lightning Billy is a 6-panel, 10 x 15 feet eye. Stevenson’s figure drawing is mostly limited to specific body parts, including the Toes of Sal Mineo or the Smile of Alain DeLeon.
Group Show with Robert De Niro, Keith Haring, Stuart Davis, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselman, and others
Primarily recognized for his figure drawing, Stevenson’s work was included in Twentieth-century American Drawings: The Figure in Context (1984). The 6-city tour included other figure drawings by such notables as Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922 – 1993). De Niro’s contribution to the exhibit was a 1977 crayon drawing of Garbo in “Romance.” It’s presumed De Niro’s figure drawing was from a photograph related to the film. It provided the source of the drawing, but not style, which was De Niro’s alone.
“The figure is drawn only to serve as an annotation toward the elaboration it will receive in a painting where it will be refined and completed” wrote Paul Cummings on Stevenson’s Paul for Pompeii (Street of the Brothels). Stevenson completed the charcoal and pencil in 1983.
Yasuo Kuniyoshi is included in this group exhibit. He was Stevenson’s instructor at Art Students League New York in 1949. Robert Rauschenberg was also a student that year. Other notable artists in the exhibition: Paul Cadmus, Stuart Davis, Red Grooms, Keith Haring, Edward Hopper, Leon Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Pavel Tchelitchew, and Tom Wesselman.
Beauty in Disability
Inspiration for the figure artist arises from numerous sources: an old photograph, live model studio time, or the next-door neighbor. The God Pan was beautifully rendered by Stevenson whilst living in Paris France. Although his neighbor was born with an arm deformity, Stevenson painted the beauty. The piece was donated to the Yale University Art Gallery by alum Richard Brown Baker (B.A. 1935).
Suggested Readings
Learn more about American artist Harold Stevenson figure drawing:
Twentieth-century American Drawings: The Figure in Context by Paul Cummings (1984).
Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle (1977).
The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity & Disability in the Graeco-Roman World by Robert Garland (1995). This book illustrates figures in art from obesity, emaciated youth, dwarfism, blind, hunchback, amputees, hermaphrodite, fused limbs, club feet, and more. The discussion on “Problems in the interpretation of iconography” (p. 107) reminds us that the artistic renditions can represent poor draughtsmanship or the expression of aesthetic convention.
Upcoming exhibitions: Art in Community: The Harold Stevenson Collections
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Dian Jordan, 2019.