Stephenson had always resisted making prints but at the invitation of the Contemporary Art Society he devised a way of making an edition of 540 of which each print would be unique. By designing a rectangle of collage to be placed slightly differently on each sheet he produced a rolling effect over the whole series. Thus paradoxically reversing the original purpose of printing which is to produce a multiple of a single image. En masse they looked ravishing. A diagram of the intended placings became a beautiful line drawing in itself.
A second print was requested by Sunderland Art Centre. Stephenson responded by making three variations on a theme instead of only a single image for a large edition. Tall and elegant, they can hang together as a group of three, as a selected pair, or singly.
During the eighties he was temporarily removed from his Elm Park Gardens studio to a smaller flat nearby while the house was undergoing building repairs. During that time he painted three beautiful canvases, of which Schrodinger’s Cat became his Diploma painting for the Royal Academy. All of them were strange departures from the all over paintings, both backward and forward looking, the change of studio perhaps being the catalyst.