About the Artist

Stephen and Palmina Pace

Born in 1918 near Charleston, Missouri, Stephen Pace grew up in Posey County, Indiana. He began formal art training at the age of 17 in a course sponsored by the Works Progress Administration and taught by the accomplished artist Robert Lahr at the Evansville Museum. After serving in World War II, Pace studied at the Institute of Fine Arts in San Miguel Allende, Mexico. He continued his studies at the Art Students League in New York City and abroad in Paris and Florence.

During the 1950s, Stephen Pace was immersed in the painting style known as abstract expressionism. In the early 1960s, after the Paces began to spend summers in Maine, the artist turned back to figurative painting, incorporating his family, friends and neighbors into his paintings and drawings. Pace also painted from memory, reminiscing about his childhood on the farm in Indiana and scenes of everyday life with his brothers, parents, and grandparents.

Pace was a visiting artist and lecturer at many institutions during his nearly six-decade career, retiring from teaching at the American University in Washington D.C. in 1983. He continued to influence art students at the University of Southern Indiana as a special guest lecturer when he and his wife Palmina returned to New Harmony.

Stephen Pace received numerous awards, several from the National Academy of Art and the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters, including the Jimmy Ernst Award for Lifetime Achievement. His work is held in dozens of public collections across the country, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Whitney Museum of American Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

The University of Southern Indiana Foundation was the beneficiary of a major collection of Pace’s work, and we are grateful to Susan Colaricci Sauls, Art Collections Director, and the University for sharing this selection of work by a remarkable Hoosier painter.

From the Exhibition: