May sitting on the Roof Garden, 1975

Olwyn Bowey RA (b. 1936)

RA Collection: Art

The painter Olwyn Bowey became a full Royal Academician in 1975, and the following year deposited this portrait as her Diploma Work in fulfilment of the conditions of her election.

May sits on the roof terrace of a London mews house, her floral dress blending with the potted plants around her. She worked as a housekeeper for a gallery owner in Hampstead, and Bowey recalled that she was an amiable sitter, who did not mind having her portrait painted.

The profusion of plant life is typical of the artist’s work. As Bowey put it, she ‘really wanted to be a naturalist and a botanist, rather than a painter.’ The Burmese cat in the background had one paw in plaster, having broken its leg jumping off the balcony.

In the 1960s and 1970s Bowey was primarily a portrait painter, but since moving out to the Sussex countryside in the late 1970s she has become concerned increasingly with depictions of rural life. Her paintings are commonly depictions of greenhouses and plant life.