Stephen Pace (1918 – 2010) was an American painter best known for his work as an Abstract expressionist and for his figurative art. Though he had started drawing as a child, he first received a sketchbook from a teacher when he was in the fourth grade. His first formal training began when he was 17, when he studied anatomical studies and watercolor painting with Works Progress Administration artist Robert Lahr in Evansville, Indiana.
After World War II, Pace moved to New York City, studying there at the Art Students League of New York and independently with artist Hans Hofmann. Pace's work as Abstract Expressionist during the 1950s, first displayed in New York at the Artists Gallery, was described by The New York Times as consisting of "dark, energetically worked abstractions achieved through a distinctive blend of brushwork, drawing and staining". Time later spent in Pennsylvania and Maine led Pace to create representational pieces depicting outdoor scenes, such as lobstermen and of his wife while she was gardening, as well as interiors and nudes done in his studio.
Pace’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others.