David Watson Stevenson was born in Ratho, Midlothian, Scotland on 25 March 1842. He trained as a sculptor with William Brodie from 1860 to 1868, during which time he also attended the Trustees' School of Design in Edinburgh, where he won the South Kensington Schools national prize for a statuette reproduction of the Venus de Milo. He also attended the life school of the Royal Scottish Academy, where he won a prize in 1865. In 1868 he took a studio in Edinburgh and began work as a sculptor on his own account. In 1876 he visited Rome to further his sculptural studies. He also developed an interest in modern French sculpture resulting in Frequent visits to Paris. Stevenson exhibited frequently at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. He also exhibited at at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; and at the New Gallery and Royal Academy in London.
Among his commissions were the Platt memorial at Oldham (1876–77), a statue of William Wallace for the national monument on the Abbey Craig near Stirling, and statues of Robert Tannahill at Paisley, Highland Mary at Dunoon, and Robert Burns at Leith. He contributed figures to the Scott monument and the façade of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. Stevenson also executed many portrait busts, including a set of fourteen subjects of national and historical importance for the interior of the Wallace national monument at Stirling. He also modelled a life-size portrait statue of Robert Louis Stevenson, now in the collection of Glasgow Museum. He died in Edinburgh on 18 March 1904.
Text source: Arts + Architecture Profiles from Art History Research net (AHRnet) https://www.arthistoryresearch.net/
