Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (25 March 1847 – 18 April 1900) was a Scottish art critic, a cousin of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson and the brother of Katharine de Mattos. He was also an artist, painting landscapes and country figures.
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Life
He was the only son of the Scottish engineer, Alan Stevenson, and of Margaret Jones, his wife.
He was born at Edinburgh on 25 March 1847, and educated at Windermere and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he took no honours, but graduated B.A. in 1871 and M.A. in 1882.
He excelled as a gymnast and light-weight athlete ; his favourite outdoor exercise was canoeing.
His tastes in life were Bohemian, and the family profession did not attract him ; but he was deeply interested in all the fine arts, especially the theory and practice.
From boyhood he was close to his first cousin, Robert Louis Stevenson, his junior by three and a half years, who on the critical side of his mind owed much in youth to the stimulating company and influence of his cousin 'Bob.'
For a year or two after taking his degree Stevenson continued to live with his widowed mother and sisters at Edinburgh, studying painting at the Edinburgh School of Art.