Haine, Stephen (born 1942)

Displayed on our website as current or past stock – Stephen Haine Contemporary Work

As will be seen from his biography, Stephen Haine’s creative life has flowed through a rich and varied terrain. He  started drawing and painting seriously in 1990 under the guidance of the artist Penny de Haas Curnow. Subsequently he started printing in classes at the Byam Shaw School of Art. From 2002-2004 he did a two-year Diploma in Fine Art at the Hampstead School of Art. In France he met and worked with a printmaker, Eric Langlamet, and this led particularly to his work in woodcuts.

He works primarily as a painter in oils and as a print maker. His work is often figurative and has a strong narrative and symbolic element. Both prints and paintings are often done  in themed series. Common to all is an attempt to discover the essence of a subject caught in a moment of time. His work is often informed by his professional experience of our human nature and may be combined with a certain amount of irony.

Stephen grew up in the West Midlands on the edge of Birmingham and the industrial landscape of the Black Country, but spent most of his holidays in the Cotswolds where his father came from a genteel but impoverished farming family. An early influence was the sight of bombed buildings in the heart of Birmingham. His father was a carpenter and metalwork teacher and many of his early practical and creative skills came from his father. His mother was musical and he played the violin from an early age.

After attending a Black Country Grammar School, he went to Cambridge University to read Mathematics and then Theology. A year was then spent working as a labourer in the Sheffield steel industry. Following that he went to Oxford University and did a second degree in Theology and a year’s Pastoral and Counselling training. He was then ordained minister in the Congregational Church (later United Reformed Church) and worked in Reading for thirteen years as a minister, counsellor and Industrial Chaplain. Following this for eight years he ran Youth Counselling services initially in Uxbridge and then in Central London. In 1980 he also undertook psychoanalytic psychotherapy training and since 1987 has worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. Currently he works part-time as a psychotherapist both in London and Reading combining it with his work as an artist. Two months of the year he spends in the mountains of the French Auvergne where he has both a home and a studio. We are very pleased to have a selection of his work showing here on our website in the ‘Contemporary Art’ section.

Stephen has also exhibited at: Hampstead School of Art, Burgh House in Hampstead London, University Women’s Club, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Caversham Open Studios in Reading, Henley Festival of Arts, and he has had a number of commissions, most recently a large oil painting of the port of Piran in Slovenia.