John Cecil Stephenson (18 September 1889, in Bishop Auckland, County Durham – 1965, in London) was a British abstract artist and pioneer of Modernism.
In 1914 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art and moved to London, at 6, the Mall Studios, near Hampstead, where he remained for the rest of his life.
In 1922, Stephenson was appointed Director of Art at the Northern Polytechnic in London, a post he retained until 1940 when he was made redundant.
His other friends and neighbours over the years included Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Herbert Read, Walter Gropius, Alexander Calder and Ben Nicholson.
In 1937, Stephenson contributed a page to Ben Nicholson, Leslie Martin and Naum Gabo's influential Circle: an international survey of Constructivist art.