Stella Bowen: Interior, Paris

Interior, Paris

Interior, Paris
painted in Paris, 1931
watercolour over pencil on cardboard 55 x 38 cm
signed l.r., pencil “STELLA BOWEN/1931”
private collection

In 1930, Bowen spent the last of her money to convert a “shabby and inconvenient” studio on the Rue Boissonade into the “nicest home we ever had”. It was decorated with furniture and ornaments from a Parisian antique market:

But although this little attic was arranged as a joke and filled with all sorts of shining bits of nonsense, I myself took a keen secret pleasure in its old-fashioned look which seemed to stand for safety and permanence and a comforting sense of familiar things used and understood.

As the Great Depression worsened, Bowen was forced to rent out half of the studio to make ends meet.

 

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