William Bowyer RA, The French Window

The French Window, 1973

William Bowyer RA (1926 - 2015)

RA Collection: Art

Surrounded by yellow London bricks, this French window opens onto a domestic interior. Reversing traditional expectations of painting as a ‘window’ onto the world, Bowyer creates an introspective view of his family home where his wife Vera attends to one of their children.

The dappled sunlight evokes the artist’s interest in the French Impressionists while the multiple doorways and openings recall the work of seventeenth-century Dutch artists.

Bowyer once remarked that one of the pleasures of London was ‘a never-ending number of pictorial possibilities within a few yards of my doorstep.’

Object details

Title
The French Window
Artist/designer
William Bowyer RA (1926 - 2015)
Date
1973
Object type
Painting
Copyright owner
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions

1218 mm x 1220 mm x 20 mm

Collection
Royal Academy of Arts
Object number
03/354
Acquisition
Purchased from William Bowyer RA in 1974
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