Stella Bowen: Flight from reason
- Periods:
- To England
- An artist's journey
- Inner worlds
- The return to England
- The war years
Period: The war years
Flight from reason
painted in London, 1941
oil on cardboard 65.4 x 54.7 cm
inscribed on reverse, top c., pencil “Flight from reason/₤15.50/ Stella Bowen”, not dated
private collection
Stella Bowen painted the effects of the blitz on London’s buildings. The sculptures and monuments she depicted in this view of the Inner Temple appeared to her “untouched and complacent, amid the wreckage”.
Flight from reason was exhibited in Wartime experience in art: the Artist’s International Association underground at Charing Cross in 1941. Bowen mused that it was “bought by a Major-something-or-other after being well noticed by the press, & reproduced (with half a dozen others) in the Sketch of Oct 8th and also reproduced in The Studio.” This public success spurred her on to continue to pursue the idea of painting “London in ruins”, despite the danger.
Paintings
- Julia
- The house opposite
- Flight from reason
- Embankment gardens
- Admiral Sir Ragnar Colvin
- Bomber crew
- Bombing up a Lancaster for Wing Commander Douglas
- Remains of a flying bomb
- Group Captain Hughie Edwards
- D-Day, 0300 hours, interrogation hut
- Flying Officer Frederick Syme, Sunderland captain
- Pilot Officer Ronald Warfield
- A Sunderland crew comes ashore at Pembroke Dock (F. Syme, Ron Warfield, Ron Tyson, Eric Genders, Charlie Martin, Spud Murphy, Bob Meade, Merv Pike, Jock Beattie, Curly Rowland and John Bishop)
- At the Churchill Club, large and small worlds
- RAAF airmen at Mongewell Park Medical Rehabilitation Unit
- Private, Gowrie House
- Repatriated prisoner of war is processed
- Brigadier George Langley
- Reception desk at Gowrie House, Eastbourne
- Theaden in Kensington
- [Flowers in a green Norwegian pot]