Stella Bowen: A Sunderland crew comes ashore at Pembroke Dock
- Periods:
- To England
- An artist's journey
- Inner worlds
- The return to England
- The war years
Period: The war years
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)
painted in London, 1945
oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.4 cm
signed l.r., oil “STELLA BOWEN”, not dated
Australian War Memorial
acquired under official war art scheme, 1945
ART26275
After the relative hardships of Binbrook station, Stella Bowen found life easier at the Sunderland base at Pembroke Dock in south Wales. She stayed with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and could participate more freely in the social atmosphere of service life.
Bowen found the Sunderlands “beautiful – not sinister like the Lancasters”. She did quick portraits of Flying Officer Frederick Syme and Pilot Officer Ronald Warfield, who are the focus for the group portrait of a Sunderland crew. The nine men are shown coming ashore, framed by the hazy, tranquil bay in front of a picturesque Welsh landscape.
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]