Stephen Bone was the son of the artist Muirhead Bone. He studied art under his father and Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Fine Art (1922-24). In 1924 he won a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition. Elected NEAC in 1932. He illustrated books using mainly wood-engravings but was also a painter, lithographer and muralist (executing a mural for Piccadilly underground station in 1928) a designer of dust-jackets and war artist.