Jason Bowyer 1957-2019

The trustees are shocked and deeply saddened by the death of Jason Bowyer on 17 February 2019. He was a board member from 2003 – a warm, imaginative, generous and supportive colleague. We will miss him enormously.

We loved Jason’s enthusiasm for Hogarth and for Hogarth’s House. He helped run a lively ‘Big Draw’ event there, made a handsome painting of the ancient mulberry tree for the House and was an energetic co-curator of The Small Self, our exhibition of self portraits which marked the 250th anniversary of Hogarth’s death in 2014. This self-portrait was his contribution to it.

We got to know Jason’s work through exhibitions at The London Museum of Water and Steam, where he had had a studio for over 20 years. Some of us seized the chance to do an art class there with him and we greatly enjoyed his very sociable private views! With his late father, William, and his brother, Francis, he was a major player in the New English Art Club.

Jason’s paintings and drawings included wonderful portraits, dramatic interiors of the Steam Museum, and landscapes of his beloved Walberswick where the Bowyer family was a long-standing part of the community, and stalwarts of the cricket team. We send our love and sympathy to his wife, Claire Ireland, the ceramicist, his son, Leo and his brother Francis.