Girl in Blue, 1975

William Bowyer RA (1926 - 2015)

RA Collection: Art

The identity of the sitter in this portrait is unknown but she is probably a family member or the daughter of a friend. Although the artist produced many portraits for private clients, he also made paintings of those close to him. His popularity as a portraitist owed much to his deep and thoughtful engagement with his sitters – he spent time cultivating a relationship that he could then convey in paint. On a personal level, he made many portraits of his granddaughter with the hope that she would cherish them in years to come – or in the artist’s words, so that she would “remember me once I’m gone”.

As the title suggests, this painting is both a study of the colour blue and a depiction of an individual. The girl appears as a fanfare of blue; her clothes, her eyes, her book. Flecks of blue in the chair embed the colour into the setting. The contrast between the girl’s illuminating presence and the murky, indistinct background is characteristic of Bowyer’s striking manner of painting. The immediacy of the sitter is heightened by her steady gaze, perhaps also reflecting a close connection between her and the artist.