Stella Bowen: Repatriated prisoner of war is processed
Art, Love and War
- Periods:
- To England
- An artist's journey
- Inner worlds
- The return to England
- The war years
Period: The war years
In the last stages of the war, Stella Bowen was assigned to Gowrie House at Eastbourne in Sussex, a repatriation centre where Australian servicemen who had been prisoners of war in Germany were debriefed, given medical examinations, and issued with new uniforms.
In a painting reminiscent of early Italian frescos illustrating the stages of prayer, Bowen painted a before-and-after view of a prisoner of war, surrounded by six depictions of hands, each representing a stage of the repatriation process as he undergoes medical and dental checks, and pay and kit issue.
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]