Will Henry Stevens (1881-1949)

Blue Spiral 1, Asheville, NC, is proud to represent the estate of Will Henry Stevens, one of the south’s most prolific modern masters.  During his career, Stevens captured the spirit of the Southern landscape from the Appalachian highlands to the Louisiana delta.

Stevens' faithful commune with nature began in as a boy and lasted his entire life, providing the inspiration for thousands of exquisite paintings.  Proficient in a variety of media, his poetic vision is expressed in oil, tempera, watercolor, and hand-crafted pastel.

His quiet intelligence, keen vision, modernist disposition, and technical mastery are seen throughout the body of work.  Stevens drew and painted simultaneously in two styles — one abstract, reminiscent of Klee and Kandinsky, and the other a lyrical body of work that is more traditional.  He was a pioneer of modernism in the American South, and his representational work and objective abstractions reflect his deep love of nature, particularly the bayou and mountains.  He easily translated the geometry he found in nature into non-objective abstractions as well.

John E. Cram
Executive Director, Blue Spiral 1    

Will Henry Stevens Each vignette area in the gallery is dedicated to the three categories of his work.

Museum Exhibition Museum Collections