Margretta Bowen, best known as Gretta Bowen (1 January 1880 – 8 April 1981) was a self-taught Irish artist. She only started painting late in life, after her sons

Arthur Arthur is a masculine given name of uncertain etymology. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Ital ...

and

George Campbell George Campbell may refer to: Sportsmen *George Campbell (rugby union) (1872–1924), Scotland international rugby union player * George Campbell (footballer, born 1957), Scottish footballer * George Campbell (footballer, born 1864) (1864–1898) ...

were already established as artists.

Early life

Although born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

to a railway worker Samuel Arthur Bowen, Margretta Bowen lived most of her life in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

.Kate Newmann
Gretta Bowen (1880-1981)
''Dictionary of Ulster Biography''. Accessed 12 January 2013. She was married to Matthew Campbell, a veteran of the Boer War. They had three boys Arthur,

George George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Gior ...

and Stanley, who all went on to paint. After her husband died in 1925 she ran an laundrette and took in lodgers to make ends meet.

Career

Bowen came to art late in her life when a few weeks before her seventieth birthday she found paints left behind by her son Arthur, and began to experiment with them. Just five years later her first exhibition was hosted in the gallery of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, Belfast. She went on to have numerous exhibitions in Dublin: at the David Hendricks Gallery in 1961, and with the Tom Caldwell Gallery in 1977 and 1980, having previously shown at Caldwell's Belfast Gallery in 1970, 1976 and in 1980.Snoddy, Theo., (2002), p.40 She had a further solo exhibition at the Bell Gallery, Belfast in 1965 and participated in many group shows including but not limited to, the

Irish Exhibition of Living Art The Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA; ) was a yearly exhibition of Irish abstract expressionism and avant-garde Irish art that was started in 1943 by Mainie Jellett. Background World War II Ireland During World War II, Ireland maintai ...

Oireachtas The Oireachtas ( ; ), sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the Bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of the president of Ireland and the two houses of the Oireachtas (): a house ...

, the

Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the Royal Irish Academy, the academy retained the word "Royal" after mo ...

and the

Ulster Society of Women Artists The Ulster Society of Women Artists was founded in 1957 by Gladys Maccabe with the assistance of Olive Henry and others, as there were no arts societies in Northern Ireland that would accept female members. The society aims to"promote and encoura ...

. In 1979, at the age of 99, her works gained international fame when she exhibited at the International Naïves exhibition in London. Bowen also showed internationally having solo and group exhibitions in the US and Canada. The Arts Council for Northern Ireland used her ''Rustic Sports'' for a widely distributed poster print in 1974. In the following year her son George was commissioned to paint her portrait which was later displayed in the Arts Council's ''Women of Belfast'' exhibition.

Death and legacy

Bowen died in Belfast on 8 April 1981. Her works can be found in many collections including those of the Ulster Museum, and the Department of Environment for Northern Ireland.

References

External links

Examples of Gretta Bowen's work in public collections
via ArtUK {{DEFAULTSORT:Bowen, Gretta 1880 births 1981 deaths 20th-century Irish painters 20th-century Irish women artists Artists from Belfast Artists from Dublin (city)