Gretta Bowen - Artist Info

About Gretta Bowen

Name variants

Greta Bowen
  • Biography

    Mother of artists George and Arthur Campbell, Gretta Bowen began painting shortly before her seventieth birthday and held her first solo exhibition in Belfast in 1955 at the gallery run by the Council for Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA).

    In 1956 she held a solo exhibition with Victor Waddington in Dublin where her paintings attracted attention from the media for their innocence and colour effectiveness. Critics in the 1950's nicknamed her an Irish 'Grandma Moses' after the American folk artist Anna Mary Roberson (1860-1961) 'Grandma Moses' who began painting in her late seventies.

    Naïve in style, Bowen's crowded paintings usually depict gay memories of her childhood in Dublin. Childre...

    But wait, there's more...

    Displaying 1,244 of 1,228 characters.

    Subscriber Members, please Sign In for full artist biographies and all services.

    For non-paying users, good news! Full text bios for all artists are available every Friday.

    If you are not currently a member, please See Details about membership.

** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at .

Share an image of the Artist: .