Artist Tim Stevenson: Honoring The Past

Photo: Carol Stewart

Visiting the working environment of artist Tim Stevenson, you don't immediately get the idea that he is a pioneer, a member of the avant-garde, or the exponent of a startling new artistic viewpoint. His studio, adapted from a Dutch Colonial residence built in 1852, is traditional in every sense of the word. The main foyer and adjoining rooms of the house are filled with an eclectic mix of antique and modern furnishings. Scores of his own paintings (some 60 to 80 at any one time, all prime examples of traditional realism), are tastefully displayed on the walls throughout the historic old house. A utility table in one room is piled high with dozens of art books celebrating Rembrandt, Velásquez, Titian, John Ruskin and others. The demeanor of the artist himself is the picture of Southern gentility and old-world charm.

But as we all know, especially in art, appearances aren't always what they seem. Stevenson is actually an innovator of sorts, not in the sense that he is intent on breaking ties with the past, but rather, that he wishes to bring the past forward to the present. Over the past three decades, he has realigned himself with the older traditions of European Masters, many of which have been either ignored by modern painters or forgotten, and has incorporated them into his artwork. He is one of a growing vanguard of artists committed exclusively to the genre of classic realism, a trend which in recent years has been gaining momentum worldwide.

"A big part of what I'm trying to do is connect in both directions, the past and the future," states Stevenson. "It's the idea of building on the shoulders of giants—those that came before us. We're all very connected to the past whether we want to think about it or not."

Stevenson doesn't merely copy the styles of acclaimed Masters; he uses their techniques to create works that have a classic feel yet are contemporary in their viewpoint.

"His paintings have the calmness and grace of a Vermeer," commented Betty Walter, former University of North Alabama art department chairwoman. "It's that sense of wholeness and self-containment that gives it such a classic and timeless quality. You feel it could have been painted anytime from the 17th century on."

One of the hallmarks of a Stevenson painting is painstaking attention to detail. The trait is not merely idiosyncratic, but rather, begs a more intimate response from the viewer.

"If I don't understand what's in front of me, how do I expect my viewers to? My drive is to come to terms with what I'm seeing. If I have paid enough attention to what I'm dealing with, even taking it to a spiritual level, then there's a chance that the viewer might come to that also."

Stevenson wasn't always so committed to the representational genre. During his formative years as an art student at the University of North Alabama, he adopted the then prevailing notion that aspiring artists should do abstracts, or at the very least, surrealist paintings. "It was a confusing time," he remembers. "No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't make the contemporary styles my own."

After 5 years of floundering in different modernistic styles, he came to a momentous decision.

"I decided I would go back to the style I had always been most comfortable with, and that was purely representational art, still lifes, landscapes and such. I realized it was who I really am."

To solidify his decision, Stevenson gathered up all the art he had created to that point, some 450 paintings, formed them into a pile on a patch of land used by his family as a garden and burned it. The act represented a turning point in his professional life.

"I never regretted it. It felt so very right at the time, and I still feel that way. What I had been doing before was a mimicry type of thing. I was trying to do things that might please a New York type of crowd. I realized they were not my potential audience."

Stevenson began doing still lifes and landscapes his own way. Achieving recognition, however, did not come quickly. To make ends meet, he moved with his wife Carol from Florence, Alabama to Augusta, Georgia and worked there as a billboard painter for fourteen years.

"In billboards, all the same principles of color and value apply. It's just on a larger scale," he stated. "Those were very educational years."

Over a period of time, Stevenson grew as an artist, adopting watercolors as his primary medium. His reputation began to take hold. In 1990, he decided to take a trip to Amsterdam to visit the Rijksmuseum and other museums there in order to view firsthand the works of the Dutch Masters. He remembers being most impressed with the works of Rembrandt, a few of his pupils, and the Minor Masters Pieter Claesz, Willem Heda and Peter de Hooch.

"I thought I was cruising right along and doing pretty good at that point," he recalls, "but when I saw what those fellas were doing, I realized my standards had been set way too low. That was a wakeup call for me."

Returning home, he was determined to make his work reflect the level of quality he had witnessed in Amsterdam. But the question was how. "I didn't know anybody to go to. There are some very good watercolorists across the country, but who are they? The art magazines weren't talking about them.

"The other thing is, these fellas were oil painters. So I wasn't going to jump over to oil painting. What I did was try to get my standards up with a sense of falling in love with the craft all over again. I just tried to figure out how they did certain things. Along the way, I suppose I've come up with my own methods."

Raising his standards seems to have paid off. In more recent years, Stevenson's work has been displayed in over a hundred venues, including showings in Delaware, Washington, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.

"Tim's complex art is not only inspiring in its own rite," spoke Kathy Reed, owner of Bill Shores Gallery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, "but it also honors in composition artists who have shared the same vision for elegance and worth."

In 2000, Stevenson moved back to his native Florence, Alabama after a 19-year absence, vowing to make that his permanent home. The move was prompted by a desire of the artist to get back to the things that he knew and understood.

"It had been a dream of mine for a long time of coming back to this area," he recalls. "It has a great deal of natural beauty—the Tennessee River Valley and the foothills of the Appalachians. For many years, while we were in Augusta, I was dreaming of painting the river here."

Ever the traditionalist, Stevenson acknowledges his ties to the history and culture of the Shoals area. To date, he has completed almost 20 newer paintings and over 70 studies focused on the Tennessee River and its environs.

"I'm taking a view of one area on the planet that I know best. I know the people best, the land best and the social life. I'm using that as a platform to find something greater. Every place has its own genius. I'm trying to come to terms with what the genius is here."

The latest development in Tim Stevenson's career is a forthcoming publication of a comprehensive retrospective of his art entitled Thoughts And Paintings, currently set for release by Legends in Print Publishing, Florence, AL.

"What makes this book different from other art books on the market," spoke Tommy Martin, Legends In Print's CEO, "is that each color reproduction is accompanied by the thoughts and feelings of Tim Stevenson. So far as we know, no other major art compilation provides such in-depth commentary directly from the artist himself. It will be an important work not only for connoisseurs of representational art, but also an exceptional reference work for students, teachers and libraries alike."

Stevenson is pleased with where his career has taken him. For the moment, he is reaping the rewards of a path less traveled. As to where he may fit in the greater scheme of things, his perspective is quite simple:

"I look at some of my heroes, artists that I admire, and I have a sense of what their effect has been on me in terms of inspiration and broadening of my view. I'd like to have that same effect on someone else."