Bale money
Art critic… John Vincent looks at the career of an outspoken painter dismissed from a Yorkshire art society at the age of 17.
Owen Bowen, the Yorkshire painter with nicely rhyming names reflecting his Welsh heritage, may have fallen just short of a place among the artistic elite, but his stylish and colourful coastal, countryside and stilllife images are still continuing to attract succeeding generations of collectors.
That his Impressionist works regularly appear – and sell well – at auctions in Yorkshire and throughout the North reflects his enduring popularity and prolific output during a career which ended only with his death at 94 in 1976.
The latest batch of Bowens to appear on the market surface at this weekend’s Pavilions of Harrogate Decorative Antiques and Fine
Art Fair at the Great Yorkshire Showground, which runs until tomorrow evening. Among them are
A Yorkshire Haytime, an oil on canvas which featured in an exhibition at the Royal Institute of Painters in
1917. It is offered by Walker Galleries of Harrogate at £3,000, along with a vibrantly coloured still-life, Roses ,at £3,200.
Coincidentally, another Harrogate gallery, that of Paul McTague, is also offering several Bowen oils: a pair, Sunny Morning, Collingham (an early one showing a view close to the artist’s home near
Wetherby) and Village Pastures at £3,850; Fishing on the Wharfe at £1,650; The Moor (also £1,650) and Still Life With Primulas (£1,450).
Leeds-born Bowen was influenced by his teacher at Leeds School of Art, William Gilbert Foster (1855-1906), a leader of the Staithes Group, who inspired him to visit the fishing village and many other coastal and inland areas which provided inspiration for his finest work.
Bowen bought a cottage in Robin Hood’s Bay but worked as a pottery designer and lithographic apprentice before finding his true calling in painting. After enjoying commercial success from a young age, he won two medals at the inaugural Yorkshire Union of Artists exhibition in 1888. But the outspoken Bowen was expelled after two years at the age of 17 following a disagreement with the secretary.
He was elected a member of the
Staithes School in 1904 and after several successful years as a commercial artist opened his own painting school in Leeds. Thereafter he lived a long and productive life, travelling widely in Holland and Austria as well as throughout Scotland and Wales. Bowen exhibited at many national societies, including the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and many academies, including the Royal, Scottish, Royal Hibernian and Royal Cambrian academies.
His work has been exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and several galleries in Yorkshire, including those in Leeds, Rotherham and Rochdale, hold his work.
This weekend’s fair at the Great Yorkshire Showground, the first of the year, brings together leading dealers from the North and features art and antiques dating back to the 16th century with prices ranging from £20-£20,000.
Dolled up: A 300-lot collection of dolls assembled over 60 years by Betty Fox, of Aston, Sheffield, fetched £54,000 at Special Auction Services of Newbury, Berkshire, following her death in 2019 aged 95. She kept her extraordinary haul all over the house
– in bedrooms, the bathroom, sewing room, everywhere. It was the largest single owner haul ever offered by SAS and highlights included a Princess Elizabeth doll, which realised £930.
Pocket money: Spanish sculptor Felix Pedro de Tavera’s 11in bronze figure of a boy standing with his hands in his pockets, dated 1890, fetched £750 at Hartleys. Lady With a Tennis Racket, a print by Yorkshire artist David Jagger (1891-1958), first published in Good Housekeeping in 1928, made £1,880.
Royle standard: Clearing the Wood, a painting by Stanley Royle (1888-1961), post-impressionist landscape painter and