BOWEN, ESTHER GWENDOLYN (1893-1947), portrait painter and official war artist,
was born on 16 May 1893 at North Adelaide, daughter of Thomas Hopkins Bowen
(d.1896), surveyor, and his wife Esther Eliza, née Perry (d.1913). She was known
in Adelaide as Estelle and in London as Stella. After leaving Miss Caroline
Jacob's school, Tormore House, with first place in English in the senior
certificate examination, she began her art training with Margaret Preston. Early
in 1914, with an allowance from her parents' estate, she sailed for England.
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Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
Official War Artist during World War II, Stella Bowen received early art training in Adelaide under Margaret Preston. In 1914 she sailed for Europe to study at the Slade School, London, where she was taught by Walter Sickert. Bowen travelled extensively on the Continent and her circle of artistic and literary figures include Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Ford Madox Ford. Bowen lived with the novelist Ford for nine years and they had a daughter, Julia. Her chief interests were portraits and she was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy. Also Bowen exhibited in America. In 1943 Bowen was offered a commission as an official war artist. Working mainly in Britain she illustrated the actions of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as well as the lives of the returned prisoners of war. Following the war she had hoped to return to Australia, for the first time since she left, but died in London of cancer on 30 October 1947.
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Australian Women's Register