Early Life, Family and Training

Stephen Pace enters the world on December 12, 1918, in Charleston, Missouri. His early years are shaped by the rhythms of a family business; his parents operate both a farm and a grocery store. The impulse toward visual recording surfaces early. In the fourth grade, a teacher hands him a sketchbook, providing the first formal tool for his developing observations.

The landscape shifts as his family moves to New Harmony, Indiana. By age 17, the focus turns toward technical discipline. He begins formal studies in Evansville, Indiana, working under Robert Lahr. These sessions focus on the mechanics of the human form through anatomical studies and the fluid application of watercolor painting.

War interrupts his trajectory. After serving in the United States Army during World War II and sustaining injuries while stationed in Europe, Pace seeks a new direction. He utilizes the G.I. Bill to pursue art in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This period of study marks a significant transition, moving him away from the structured lessons of his youth and toward the professional training that would eventually lead him to the center of the American art scene.

Abstract Expressionism in New York

New York City becomes the center of Pace's professional life. He moves through the Art Students League of New York, refining his technique. He also studies independently under Hans Hofmann, absorbing the artist's approach to color and volume. This period marks his emergence as a key figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement during the 1950s and 1960s.

The 1950s see his work move from the studio to the public eye. He first displays his paintings in New York at the Artists Gallery. His canvases during this era are characterized by a specific, heavy energy. They consist of dark, energetically worked abstractions achieved through a distinctive blend of brushwork, drawing, and staining.

Life and Work in Maine

The rhythm of Pace's life shifts toward the coast. In 1943, he and his wife, Palmina, acquire a summer home in the fishing village of Stonington. This residence, a turn-of-the-century sea captain’s house perched on a ledge overlooking Penobscot Bay, becomes a permanent fixture in his life. For more than 40 years, the Maine landscape dictates his subject matter. He splits his time between this coastal retreat and an apartment in New York City, moving between the urban energy of Manhattan and the salt air of the coast.

The focus of his canvas changes. The abstract experiments of his New York years give way to the tangible realities of the Maine coast. He captures the working people of the region, translating their presence into gestural, colorful landscapes. His brushwork finds the essence of the environment, from the rugged shoreline to the figures navigating it. He settles into the light of the coast, painting the immediate surroundings of his life in Stonington.

• Island Gulls (1977)

Technique and Artistic Style

The canvas often bears the marks of rapid execution. Pace works with a speed that suggests an immediate, almost instinctive connection to the subject, yet this velocity is deceptive. He possessed a capacity for subtle corrections that allowed him to refine a composition without losing its momentum. He referred to himself as a "fake Zen painter," a nod to the perceived spontaneity of his process that masked a highly controlled technical precision.

His aesthetic evolution moves between the energetic abstractions of his early career and a later, more structured approach to the physical world. During his time as an Abstract Expressionist, his technique relied on a distinctive blend of brushwork, drawing, and staining to create dark, energetically worked surfaces. As his focus shifted toward figurative art, his style transitioned into a language of simplified forms and imaginative colors. He used planes of color to describe volume, often capturing the essence of a scene through gestural strokes rather than meticulous detail.

• Island Gulls (about 1977)
• Deer Island (about 1975)

Later Years and Death

The final chapter of Pace's life finds him returning to the landscape of his youth. After decades of splitting time between the urban energy of Manhattan and the coastal light of Stonington, Maine, he eventually relocated to southern Indiana. He spent his final year in an assisted-living facility in Evansville before moving back to his home and studio in New Harmony. Even in these later years, the impulse to create remained constant.

On September 23, 2010, the work stopped. Pace died of pneumonia at the age of 91 at St. Mary's Hospital in Evansville. He had been at his easel, engaged in the act of painting, on the very day he passed away. He died in the same state of creative focus that defined his long career, leaving behind a massive body of work that includes a significant bequest of 6,000 pieces to the University of Southern Indiana.