B. 1940, Great Linford, Bucks

Education : Northampton School of Art, NDD 1961 in illustration and lettering.

Ian Stephens taught art in local schools until he resumed a career in graphic design in 1978, as Design Manager with Oldhams Leisure Group.

He has been freelance since 1990 as a designer and, actively, in illustration and print making. Recent commissioned work, in which he has tackled historical and figure subjects, has pushed his preferred occupation of fine-art printmaking from the landscape somewhat into the background.

The form, uses and denizens of the land concern him. He tries always to be objective about how it is, rather than how it was or might be; though these factors also hold great fascination, especially in the traces of trackways and settlements left behind.

He tries not to let the medium or process get in the way: wood engraving, for all that he enjoys engraving and printing woodblocks, is only the means through which he chooses to explore his subjects - a secondary rather than a primary consideration.

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