Stella Bowen: Toulon
Art, Love and War
- Periods:
- To England
- An artist's journey
- Inner worlds
- The return to England
- The war years
Period: An artist's journey
[Toulon]
painted in Toulon, France, c. 1925
oil on wood panel 41 x 32.5 cm
not signed, not dated
private collection
Ford and Bowen lived in France for the duration of their relationship, where they found the living relatively cheap. They divided their time between Paris and the south of France, including for a period, Toulon. Bowen loved Toulon with its “tall, shabby and colourful old houses, unmarred by any intrusion of modernity” and its “fortress-capped mountains”.
While Ford worked on his masterpiece, Parade’s end, Bowen spent time talking about painting with her friends, the Cubist painter Juan Gris, and the Fauve painter Othon Friesz, free from the literary discussions that prevailed with Ford and his associates in Paris.