Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 21st October 2019

164 147 Gretta Bowen (1880-1981) Dancing to an Accordion I signed lower centre and titled verso oil on board 34 x 34cm (13.5 x 13.5in) Provenance: James Wray Gallery, Belfast; Private Collection €1,000-1,400 (£884-1,238) Gretta Bowen is a distinctive figure in Irish art. Born in 1880 she seems to have been inspired by her sons, the artists George and Arthur Campbell, or by the proximity of their materials, to take up art in her seventies. As with many ‘naive’ painters, her subjects often appear to be taken from specific memories and her paintings can depict multiple narratives within the same image. Her lively handling of paint and direct use of colour convey the artist’s own pleasure in these events and memories. By the mid-1950s Bowen was exhibiting with the Victor Waddington Galleries as well as at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, and in 1959 she held a solo exhibition with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts. She continued to show with galleries in Belfast and Dublin and on three occasions at the Oireachtas, and at the age of one hundred her work was included in the first International Exhibition of Naïve Art in London.