Born in Mexia, Texas, Kelly Haygood Stevens lost his hearing at age 5 to scarlet fever. He enrolled in the Texas School for the Deaf, where he studied art under the tutelage of Nannie Huddle. After graduating in 1914, he went on to Gallaudet University and continued to study art concurrently at Gallaudet and the Corcoran School of Art.

Graduating Gallaudet in 1920, Stevens went on to teach at the New Jersey School for the Deaf and the Trenton School of Industrial Arts. In 1926, he traveled to Spain, where he studied with the Spanish Deaf painter Valentin de Zubiaurre and became interested in landscape painting and Native American life. Many of his subsequent paintings were devoted to the Texas landscape. He also spent time living with Native Americans in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas and painting their ceremonies, dances, and costumes.

In 1933-34, Stevens traveled through France and Spain, and then returned to the US, where he became a teacher at the Louisiana School for the Deaf. He also received his master’s degree from Louisiana State University in 1938. Stevens’ writings and art appeared extensively in The Silent Worker and other Deaf publications.

Stevens was also an expert art collector. His home, a German schoolhouse in Austin, Texas, which he personally restored and furnished, became a state historic landmark. He presented Gallaudet College with a collection of material from European Deaf artists for its centennial in 1964. Much of the remainder of his collection went to the University of Texas, which created a Kelly H. Stevens Room in its Human Research Building in his honor. Stevens received an honorary doctorate from Gallaudet College in 1971, and an Amos Kendall Award from the GCAA in 1982. He passed away in 1991.