Ep 2. Dangerously Modern: Stella Bowen
Update: 2025-08-27
Description
Dangerously Modern is a podcast from the Art Gallery of South Australia about the unprecedented wave of women artists who left a conservative Australia to pursue modern art in the early 20th century.
In this episode we follow the story of Stella Bowen, who left Adelaide when she was 21 to study art in Europe. There she met the British writer Ford Maddox Ford, and moved to Paris with him and their daughter in the 1920s. But Stella struggled under the emotional labour demanded by Ford, undermining her own career as an artist. Following her separation from Ford, Stella turned inward, making herself the focus of her paintings and finding a new sense of freedom, before meeting a tragic end.
· Works mentioned in this episode:
Drawn From Life (1941) autobiography by Stella Bowen
· This podcast is inspired by the exhibition Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940
· Dangerously Modern is also a book featuring 50 trailblazing artists, co-published by AGSA and AGNSW.
Credits
Special thanks to Elle Freak, Tracey Lock, Rob Brookman and Alexandra Aldrich. This episode was produced and presented by Rosa Ellen with sound engineering by Melissa May, original music by Margie Jean Lewis and other music from Blue Dot Sessions.
Image detail: Stella Bowen, Self-portrait, c.1928, Paris, oil on plywood, 45.0 × 36.8 cm; AGSA
In this episode we follow the story of Stella Bowen, who left Adelaide when she was 21 to study art in Europe. There she met the British writer Ford Maddox Ford, and moved to Paris with him and their daughter in the 1920s. But Stella struggled under the emotional labour demanded by Ford, undermining her own career as an artist. Following her separation from Ford, Stella turned inward, making herself the focus of her paintings and finding a new sense of freedom, before meeting a tragic end.
· Works mentioned in this episode:
Drawn From Life (1941) autobiography by Stella Bowen
· This podcast is inspired by the exhibition Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940
· Dangerously Modern is also a book featuring 50 trailblazing artists, co-published by AGSA and AGNSW.
Credits
Special thanks to Elle Freak, Tracey Lock, Rob Brookman and Alexandra Aldrich. This episode was produced and presented by Rosa Ellen with sound engineering by Melissa May, original music by Margie Jean Lewis and other music from Blue Dot Sessions.
Image detail: Stella Bowen, Self-portrait, c.1928, Paris, oil on plywood, 45.0 × 36.8 cm; AGSA
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