Phyllis Stevens (American, 1931-2020), Image on Death

Oil on canvas with gilt, unsigned, gallery wrapped canvas.

28 x 28 in.

From the Estate of the late Phyllis Stevens

Mixed media artist, Phyllis Anna Stevens, received art education from a variety of institutions, including the Art Students League, New York City, New York; The Academy of Realist Art, Toronto, Ontario; Woodstock School of Art, Woodstock, New York; Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio; and Cass Tech H.S., Detroit, MI.

While an art student at Antioch College, she produced puppet shows and performed in modern dance productions. At Antioch, she met and was briefly married to fellow art student, Herbert Fisher. They travelled westward, living the life of Bohemians, and later made a home in the Los Angeles area. In the mid-1950s, Phyllis moved to New York City with her infant daughter and settled in the Village. There she pursued her creative dreams, performing shadow puppet productions for CBS TV Network, as well as designing stage sets and lighting for Off Broadway theaters. Her knowledge of lighting and colored films used in theater productions inspired her to work with plexiglass to create artworks that responded to changes in natural lighting. Her plexiglass pieces can be hung in front of windows or can be backlit. To help support herself and her daughter, Phyllis worked professionally as a free-lance art director and graphic designer for New York publishing houses and advertising agencies.

Phyllis and Bernard Seaman completed a large 9 panel 24 ft. long plexiglass mural, “Brooklyn Working Waterfront,” that was commissioned by the International Longshoremen’s Union that was dedicated in 1963, now in the lobby of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, New York City.

Phyllis mingled with other artists and creative thinkers in the Village, and later purchased a brownstone in the East Village that had been renovated for artists with ateliers on each floor. She painted in her atelier on the top floor under a large skylight. Not long after September 11, 2001, she moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to be near her daughter and family.

Good estate condition, minor scuffs to the canvas edge.