Erwin Bowien – Nostalgia for Egmond / Heimweh nach Egmond
In the winter of 1933, German-born, Swiss-raised, plein-air painter and pacifist Erwin Bowien (1899-1972), horrified by the Nazis’ rise to power, decided to leave Germany. He went to the Netherlands and in 1934 settled in the small town of Egmond aan den Hoef near Alkmaar, a historic artists’ colony. During this time he perfected his pastel painting and was given the nickname ‘Pastel Master’. As a dedicated plein air artist, he travelled tirelessly throughout the region between Amsterdam and Hoorn, producing hundreds of paintings and drawings. After the occupation of the Netherlands by the German army in 1940, he was forced into hiding. This was the beginning of a very difficult period for the painter, during which he was banned from exhibiting by the Reich Chamber of Culture and his paintings were confiscated by the Gestapo.
Bowien was not only one of the many German exiles who found refuge in Holland, but also one of the last painters of the Egmond artists’ colony. He captured the breathtakingly beautiful dune landscape around Egmond aan Zee, the wide horizons of North Holland and the often stormy North Sea in many powerful paintings.
Peter van den Berg published a beautiful book that gives a good impression of why the fishing village of Egmond near Alkmaar was an important artists’ colony for decades. Peter van den Berg dedicated part of the book to the painter Erwin Bowien, who made this Artists’ Colony famous between 1933 and 1940 (Peter J. H. Van den Berg, De schilders van Egmond, W. Books, Zwolle, 2021, ISBN 9789462583931).
Erwin Bowien drawing in the dunes of Egmond aan Zee, 1937, Erwin Bowien (1899-1972): Holländische See, 1935, Photo Daniela Tobias
