Esther Gwendolyn "Stella" Bowen (16 May 1893 – 30 October 1947) was an Australian artist and writer.

Early life and education

Esther Gwendolyn Bowen, who was known as Stella, was born on 16 May 1893 in

North Adelaide North Adelaide is a predominantly residential precinct (Australia), precinct and suburb of the City of Adelaide in South Australia, situated north of the River Torrens and within the Adelaide Park Lands. Laid out in a grid plan in three section ...

, an inner suburb of

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

, South Australia, and educated at

Tormore House School Tormore School was a private boarding and day school for girls in North Adelaide, South Australia. History Tormore House had its origins in a small school for girls set up by Elizabeth McMinn (c. 1840 – 26 December 1937) and her two sisters S ...

. As a young girl, Bowen enjoyed drawing and convinced her mother to allow her to study with Margaret Preston. However, her desire to pursue art training in Melbourne was thwarted by the ill health of her mother and the latter's reluctance to let her daughter follow such a career. When her mother died in 1914, Bowen left for England with a return ticket and an allowance of £20 per month. In London, she studied at the

Westminster School of Art The Westminster School of Art was an art school in Westminster, London. History The Westminster School of Art was located at 18 Tufton Street, Deans Yard, Westminster, and was part of the old Royal Architectural Museum. H. M. Bateman descri ...

and mixed with a company of writers, artists, poets and political activists, including

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''Blast (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His ...

Violet Hunt Isobel Violet Hunt (28 September 1862 – 16 January 1942) was a British author and literary hostess. She wrote feminist novels. She was a member of the Women Writers' Suffrage League. She also participated in the founding of International PE ...

, and

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th century in literature, 20th-century literature. He was ...

. Early in 1918, Bowen met and fell in love with the writer

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...

. She was 24, he was 44. The couple fled to rural England where their daughter Julia was born in 1920. However, by 1922, the family were fed up with the hardships of life in the English countryside and moved temporarily to France. They soon decided to remain in France and moved to Paris. Caught up in the bohemian café society of Paris, Ford started a literary magazine and was a leading figure among the expatriate writers. Bowen, meanwhile, found her first studio but managed little time for painting in between attending to the needs of Ford and their daughter.

Later years

Bowen separated from Ford in 1927. It was a difficult time for her but it did give her the time and space to pursue her art. She began to gain some portrait commissions but still struggled to earn enough money. In 1932, she went to the United States at the invitation of the poet Ramon Guthrie, who helped her in finding commissions including, among others, with

Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1930, he became the first author from the United States (and the first from the America ...

. When she returned to France she found she could not afford to remain in Paris and returned to England on her fortieth birthday. She described her month-long stay of 1936 in

Cagnes-sur-Mer Cagnes-sur-Mer (, literally ''Cagnes on Sea''; ) is a French Riviera town near Nice that is in the Alpes-Maritimes department, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in southeastern France. Geography Cagnes-sur-Mer is a town in southeaste ...

with Ross and Tusnelda SandersTusnelda Sanders website
/ref> in her autobiography, ''Drawn From Life'' and also painted depictions of her life there. Although Bowen continued to paint she did not earn enough from painting and commissions to make ends meet and for many years supplemented her income by writing an art review column in the ''News Chronicle'' and teaching. Because of her relationship with Ford Madox Ford she was given an advance to write a biography and produced ''Drawn from life: a memoir''. This book came out to glowing reviews.

World War II – war artist

The

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

brought a new chapter in Bowen's career. In 1944, she was the second woman appointed an official war artist by the

Australian War Memorial The Australian War Memorial (AWM) is a national war memorial, war museum, museum and archive dedicated to all Australians who died as a result of war, including peacekeeping duties. The AWM is located in Campbell, Australian Capital Territory, C ...

. Theaden Brocklebank, a producer with the Pacific service of the BBC and wife of Keith Hancock, had arranged for Stella Bowen to record regular talks for Australian audiences about her wartime experiences. These talks provided Bowen with additional income during a difficult time and they resulted in the offer of the position of war artist. Bowen's brief as a war artist was to depict the activities of the

Royal Australian Air Force The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is the principal Air force, aerial warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Army. Constitutionally the Governor-Gener ...

(RAAF) stationed in England. She also painted portraits of military commanders and Australian prisoners of war who had recently been repatriated from Europe. One of the early women artists to be appointed, Among other works, in 1944 she painted ''Bomber Crew'', depicting the members of a

Avro Lancaster The Avro Lancaster, commonly known as the Lancaster Bomber, is a British World War II, Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to ...

bomber crew from No. 460 Squadron RAAF. She had sketched the crew on the day that they set out for a raid against Germany, during which their

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strateg ...

was shot down, with all but one member of the crew killed. Bowen completed her last painting in 1947. She died later that year of breast and liver cancer, having never returned to Australia.

Collections

Two portraits by Bowen are held by the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

in London, those of George Douglas Howard Cole and Dame Margaret Isabel Cole. Her portrait of Ramon Guthrie done in Paris in the 1920s is in the collection of the

Hood Museum of Art The Hood Museum of Art is an art museum owned and operated by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The first reference to the development of an art collection at Dartmouth was in 1772, making the collection among the oldest and largest, a ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, US. A painting of Admiral Sir Ragnar Colvin painted in 1944 is held by the Australian War Memorial.

Exhibitions

Group shows include: * ''Stella Bowen: Art, Love & War''. Australian War Memorial touring exhibition, 15 March 2002 to 18 February 2004 * ''Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890-1940''. Art Gallery of South Australia, 24 May to 7 September 2025

Publications

''Drawn from Life : A Memoir '' (1940) (reprinted Pan Macmillan, 1999, )

Stella Bowen Park

Stella Bowen Park is located within

Park 26 The Adelaide Park Lands comprise the figure-eight configuration of land, spanning both banks of the River Torrens between Hackney and Thebarton, which encloses and separates the City of Adelaide area (including both the Adelaide city centre and ...

of the

Adelaide Park Lands The Adelaide Park Lands comprise the figure-eight configuration of land, spanning both banks of the River Torrens between Hackney and Thebarton, which encloses and separates the City of Adelaide area (including both the Adelaide city centre and ...

between the

Adelaide Oval The Adelaide Oval is a stadium in Adelaide in the state of South Australia. It is located in the Adelaide Parklands, parklands. The venue is predominantly used for cricket and Australian rules football, but has also played host to rugby league, ...

and

References

External links

Australian Artist – Bowen, Stella (1893-1947)
Canadian War Museum {{DEFAULTSORT:Bowen, Stella 1893 births 1947 deaths 20th-century Australian painters Alumni of the Westminster School of Art Australian expatriates in England Australian war artists Australian women writers Australian writers Deaths from colorectal cancer in England Writers from Adelaide Artists from Adelaide World War II artists 20th-century Australian women painters