BOWRING, VIOLET (1890-1980)

"The Pearl Necklace" (1931) 
pencil
43 x 31cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Central Coast
 
Bowring is a forgotten New Zealand Portraitist. She attended Pipitea Private School in Wellington & later the Technical College. She was successful in early competitions in freelance drawing & studied art under Maud Winifred Sherwood. In 1915 & 1916 both she & the artist Walter Bowring (who she later married) contributed to the Countess of Liverpool's Gift Book, a collection of short stories, poems and essays on NZ's involvement in World War I. They exhibited widely together at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington, in Wanganui, the Canterbury Society of Arts & later together in Sydney. Nelson left NZ in 1920 to further her art studies at the Chelsea Art School & London School of Art. In 1925, now in Sydney, Bowring joined the Society of Women Painters & the Women's Industrial Arts Society (a vice president in 1935) & was a regular exhibitor there and at the Royal Art Society. The couple became prominent in the Sydney art scene, exhibiting alongside the likes of Tom Roberts, Grace Cossington Smith & Thea Proctor, Roland Wakelin, the latter Bowring's contemporary from the Wellington Technical School & both were students of Antonio Dattilo Rubbo. It was a time when NZ-born women artists like Bowring, her former tutor Maud Sherwood & Adele Younghusband were gaining popularity & Bowring's portraits were well received. During this time she had many commissions for portraits, especially of children, & of men leaving for active service in World War II. Bowring moved to Townsville in 1950, & taught art for a time. She wrote to the Townsville Bulletin deploring the lack of an Art Gallery. When the first Townsville Arts Society was formed in 1953, Bowring became a member of the provisional committee. Unfortunately, a large fire in Townsville in 1960 destroyed much of her work & more were damaged during Cyclone Althea in 1971. Her works are yet to be represented in major collections or institutions.