Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1901 — Current Topics [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Current Topics

J> a young Artist. The artistic instinct made itself known with no uncertain sound in Miss Bowen, daughter of the Rev.

Canon and Mrs. Charlotte,, E. Bowen of Chester, for when quite a small child the little girl’s lesson books were so ornamented with sketches of figures and views that it became difficult to know whether to commend or reprimand thhse essays, which were somewhat outside the range of ordinary scholaf istlc education. Beyond this un-

asked-for decoration of her school books, the child also made attempts at sculpture, modeling in putty and clay, and crude efforts at wood carving. These efforts, immature as they naturally were, appeared so surely to indicate a more than ordinary love of art that it was considered well to cultivate the feeling, and Miss Bowen was sent to the Chester School of Art to acquire the rudimentary principles of a knowledge to which she aspired. This was followed by some work at Albert Ludovici’s studio in the metropolis. The young artist’s more important training at this time, however, she found to be in Rome, where she was with the well-known painter, F. Santoro, whose wise system it was, while thoroughly grounding "his pupils in drawing and painting, to endeavor at the same time to develop in Ahem the individual taste and talent they possessed. Anxious to fill up <he whole of her time In this valuable portion of her student life, Miss Bowen also attended the night classes for figures at the Circolo Artistico in Rome for three or four years. The young woman’s first exhibited works were “My Old Nurse” and “A View of Sorrento,” which, without telling any one and in some fear and trembling at her presumption, she sent to the exhibition of the Society of Women Artists, where, to her great delight and astonishment, they at once found purchasers.