THE BROADWALK, REGENT'S PARK
oil on panel
27 x 35cm (34 x 42cm framed)

Provenance
Studio of the artist
Thence by descent to the previous owner

Born in Chiswick, Stephen Bone was the son of painter Sir Muirhead Bone and of Gertrude Helena Dodd, a writer. He travelled widely in Europe with his father before enrolling at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1922. He became disillusioned with the Slade and left in 1924 to begin illustrating books, with woodcuts, for his mother and other writers. In 1925 Bone was awarded the Gold Medal for Wood Engraving at the International Exhibition in Paris, and in 1926 he was the subject of a joint exhibition at the Goupil Gallery, alongside Rodney Joseph Burn. In 1928 he painted an ambitious and magical mural for the underground station at Piccadilly Circus, now lost.

With his wife Bone was to travel extensively across Britain and Europe, which allowed him to paint outdoors in all weathers and develop a style of bright landscape painting that proved popular and sold well at a number of gallery exhibitions.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, he enlisted as an officer in the Civil Defence Camouflage Establishment based in Leamington Spa. He was later appointed by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee to be a full-time salaried artist to the Ministry of Information specialising in Admiralty subjects. Bone produced a large number of works depicting naval craft and coastal installations around Great Britain and in 1944 he recorded the Normandy landings. Towards the end of 1944 he travelled to Norway and painted the wreck of the Tirpitz.

After the War, he found his style of painting out of fashion and found it difficult to be exhibited. He became an art critic for the Manchester Guardian, wrote humorous pieces for the Glasgow Herald and did television and radio work for the BBC. With his wife, he wrote and illustrated children’s books.