Owen Bowen was of Welsh descent on his father’s (an accountant) side, as his name suggests, but he was born in Leeds. Having started painting at the age of four,he attended Leeds Grammar School and Leeds School of Art. It was at the latter that he met Gilbert Foster.
This meeting was pivotal in Bowen’s life: Foster subsidised his art lessons, introduced him to patrons and encouraged him to paint on the North Yorkshire coast. A precocious artist, Bowen first exhibited publically at the age of fifteen when he won two medals at the inaugural exhibition of the Yorkshire Union of Artists in Bradford Public Art Museum.
He eventually rented a studio in Leeds and spent his summers on the Yorkshire coast, buying a cottage in Robin Hoods Bay after some years. He was elected a member of the Staithes Art Club in 1904.
His earlier work tends to be his best, brimming with light, often focused strongly on the middle distance of the picture, and painted in rich, strong colours. His later work often has every colour mixed with varying degrees of white, fading his
earlier brilliance into a toneless mediocrity which cannot be described as ‘Staithes Group’. Most of his work is in oils, but his scarcer watercolours can be as good as the best of his oil paintings.
When he was thirty-eight Bowen contracted a virus while he was painting in Holland. He was bedridden for a while and unwell for several years, but recovered sufficiently to live until the age of ninety-seven! During this viral period, however, he confined himself to painting flowers. Sadly, most of these paintings suffer from the same problems as his later landscape works, but from time to time he produced a gem. These appear to fall into two categories: more delicate flowers painted in clear, clean colours and hardier or more exotic blooms where the colours are deep and rich, often contrasted with a dark background.
In addition to exhibiting with the Yorkshire Union of Artists for the first two years of its existence, Bowen exhibited no fewer than a hundred and ninety five paintings at the Royal Cambrian Academy of which he was not only a Member but also President, making him one of the most prestigious members of the Group. He was also a Member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters where one hundred and three of his pictures were shown. In 1904 he became a Member of the Staithes Art Club. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Scottish Academy and the Staithes Art Club. His work can be found in public collections in Bradford, Carlisle, Huddersfield, Leeds, Salford and Whitby.
Bibliography:
Staithes Group Centenary Exhibition, Rosamund Jordan 2003
The Staithes Group, Peter Phillips, Phillips and Sons, Marlow1993
The Yorkshire Union of Artists 1888 – 1922, Dennis Child, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society Ltd, Leeds 2001
The Dictionary of British Artists 1880 - 1940, J. Johnson & A. Greutzner, Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge 1976
© Rosamund Jordan 2006
