Dorothy Stevens

Dorothy Stevens
Stevens in 1930 by M. O. Hammond
Born	(1888-09-02)2 September 1888 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Died	5 June 1966(1966-06-05) (aged 77) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	Portrait painter, print maker

Dorothy Stevens (2 September 1888 – 5 June 1966) was a Canadian etcher, portrait painter, print maker, illustrator and teacher, perhaps the most accomplished Canadian etcher of her day. She is known for the prints she made of factory workers during World War I. She exhibited in Canada, the United States, England and France. She was active in several Canadian artists associations. Her works are held in several public art galleries.

Dorothy Stevens was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on 2 September 1888. In 1904 she left Canada to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London under Henry Tonks, Philip Wilson Steer and Walter Westley Russell. She also studied in Paris at the Académie Colarossi and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Lucien Simon. Stevens returned to Canada in 1911, and began a successful career as a painter and etcher. In 1912 she joined the Chicago Society of Etchers. Around 1913 she shared a studio in Toronto with Estelle Muriel Kerr.

Stevens continued her career as an etcher during World War I (1914–1918), alternating between Toronto and New York. Her personality was unconventional and exuberant. She said that at one time in New York she went to so many parties that she saw no daylight for three weeks. Late in 1918 she heard of a program to commission works from Canadian artists depicting home-front subjects, led by Eric Brown, when her friends Frances Loring and Florence Wyle were given commissions. She sent a letter to Brown offering to make a series of etchings, and he agreed to accept two, one on shipbuilding and the other on women in a munitions or airplane factory. The etchings were to be sold to raise money for war relief.

Stevens insisted on doing four more plates. One was of the Toronto airplane factory, two were of the British Forgings munitions plant in Toronto and one was of construction of a freighter in Toronto Harbour. Brown seems to have resented her pushiness, and only allowed her to print twenty-five editions of her etchings, although Arthur Lismer had printed one hundred and Charles William Jefferys had printed fifty. Her prints were among the best produced under the program, vividly depicting the "hustle and forced pace" of the work. Her pictures showed both women and men working, including women making shells and men in a steel plant. Her picture of a heavy-shell factory shows both men and women working on the assembly line. Stevens made draft plates of Montreal factories, but the program ran out of funding before approval could be given for the work. The proofs have been lost.