W. Lester Stevens
Birth Date: 1888
Death Date: 1969
Artist Gallery
Born in 1888 in Rockport, Massachusetts, William Lester Stevens was one of ten children whose father was a landscape gardener. The family had little money to encourage Stevens to work on his paintings, so he sold flowers, made wreaths and picked blueberries to help pay for his art expenses. At eighteen, Stevens had a picture accepted by the National Academy of Design for an exhibition. In 1909, Stevens was awarded a scholarship to the Museum School in Boston, and there he studied for four years with artists such as Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell. When his family moved to Maine, Stevens stayed in Rockport and then spent several years in Europe after serving in the Army during World War I. Stevens was impulsive when looking for subjects to paint. One time, he found a road to his favorite motif blocked, so he drove down the nearby railroad tracks. Later in life, Stevens had a four-wheel-drive vehicle, so even if he began on the road, no one knew when he might suddenly swerve and head off over the fields. One such detour took him through a farmer’s backyard, and there he was caught drying clothes on the front bumper of his vehicle. Stevens was a compulsive painter, working every day. Friends and neighbors were convinced that all of his work, no matter how big, was painted outside, on the spot. The Studio was only for finishing touches. On windy days, he’d tie a rock to the easel or stake down the canvas. Stevens could produce a painting in a couple of hours, sometimes painting three pictures in one day. One summer, he declared: "I’ve done 60 – and got 6 good ones." His obsession with painting seemed unusual to non-painters. Stevens answered this when he said, “Art isn’t painting pictures; it’s a way of life." His wife, Angie, recalled, “We led a simple life. We didn’t need much and probably seemed a ‘peculiar’ pair. We took trips, we camped out. We took long walks together in the winter. We worked hard. We laughed and hand fun. And nobody told us what to do."