Stella Bowen: Remains of a flying bomb
Art, Love and War
- Periods:
- To England
- An artist's journey
- Inner worlds
- The return to England
- The war years
Period: The war years
Remains of a flying bomb
painted in London, 1944
watercolour with pencil on cardboard 51.8 x 64.7 cm
inscribed l.r., pencil “Remains of a Fly-bomb/October 1944/Stella Bowen”
Australian War Memorial
acquired under official war art scheme, 1945
This twisted metal shell in this painting resembles a mutilated human torso. The painting recalls the ruined shells of houses in earlier works, as well as being a graphic illustration in its own right of that sense of vulnerability that Bowen saw all around her during the bombing. The use of watercolour underscores the fragility of life, but the delicate blades of grass around the bomb are a sign of regeneration.
The deliberate use of the word “remains” in the title is an ironic comment on our ability to create weapons that are then used to destroy life.
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]