Stephen Bone
{{short description|English painter}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2014}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Stephen Bone
| birth_date = {{birth date|1904|11|13|df=y}}
| birth_place = Chiswick, London, England
| death_date = {{death date and age|1958|9|15|1904|11|13|df=y}}
| death_place = London
| spouse = Mary Adshead
| field = Painting, drawing
| training = Slade School of Fine Art
| children = Quentin Bone
}}
Stephen Bone (13 November 1904 – 15 September 1958){{cite book|author=Grant M. Waters|publisher=Eastbourne Fine Art|year=1975|title=Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950}} was an English painter, writer, broadcaster and noted war artist. Bone achieved early success in book illustration using woodcuts before he turned to painting and art criticism.{{cite web |url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp06701/stephen-bone|title=Search the Collection: Stephen Bone |access-date=8 October 2013 |publisher=National Portrait Gallery (npg.org.uk) }}
Early life
File:A British Camp near Skibotn Art.IWMARTLD5336.jpg, Norway (Art.IWM ARTLD 5336)]]
File:Mulberry Harbour Art.IWMARTLD5445.jpg, Normandy (Art.IWM ARTLD 5445)]]
Stephen Bone was born in Chiswick in west London, the son of Sir Muirhead Bone, an artist, and Gertrude Helena Dodd, a writer. After leaving Bedales School, he travelled widely in Europe with his father before enrolling at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1922. Bone became disillusioned with the Slade; he left in 1924 to begin illustrating books with woodcuts for his mother and other writers.{{cite book|author=Alan Horne|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1994|title=The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators |isbn=1-85149-1082}} In 1925, he was awarded the gold medal for Wood Engraving at the International Exhibition in Paris.{{cite book|author=Frances Spalding|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1990|title=20th Century Painters and Sculptors |isbn=1-85149-106-6|author-link=Frances Spalding}} In 1926, he was the subject of a joint exhibition at the Goupil Gallery, alongside Rodney Joseph Burn and Robin Guthrie, and in 1928 he painted a mural for the underground station at Piccadilly Circus.{{cite web |author=Sally Hunter |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/31958 |title=Bone, Stephen (1904–1958) |year=2004 |access-date=9 October 2013 |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography}} {{subscription required}}{{cite book|publisher=Editions Grund, Paris|year=2006|title=Benezit Dictionary of Artists Volume 2 Bedeschini-Bulow|isbn=2-7000-3072-9}}
In 1929, Bone married the artist Mary Adshead, and they were to have two sons and a daughter.{{Cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-mary-adshead-1599840.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-mary-adshead-1599840.html |archive-date=25 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=10 December 2009 |title=Obituary: Mary Adshead |author=Sally Hunter |date=7 September 1995 |newspaper=The Independent}} The couple travelled extensively across Britain and Europe, which allowed Bone to paint outdoors in all weathers and to develop a style of bright landscape painting that proved popular and sold well at a number of gallery exhibitions.
During the 1930s, Bone exhibited at the Fine Art Society, at the Leferve Gallery, the Redfern Gallery and in 1936 exhibited a series of 41 paintings of British counties at the Ryman Gallery in Oxford. During 1936 and 1937, he painted and exhibited in Stockholm.
World War II
File:The Wreck of the Tirpitz, June 1945 by Stephen Bone IWM IWM LD 5441 (wide crop).jpg, June 1945 (ART IWM LD 5441)]]
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Bone enlisted as an officer in the Civil Defence Camouflage Establishment based in Leamington Spa.{{cite book |author=Peter J.M. McEwan |publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1994|title=The Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture|isbn=1-85149-134-1}}{{cite book|author=Sacha Llewellyn & Paul Liss|publisher=Liss Llewellyn Fine Art|year=2016|title=WWII War Pictures by British Artists|isbn=978-0-9930884-2-1}} In June 1943, Bone was appointed by the War Artists' Advisory Committee to be a full-time salaried artist to the Ministry of Information specialising in Admiralty subjects. The post had originally being held by Stephen's father, Muirhead Bone, but following the death of Gavin Bone, Stephen's brother, Muirhead decided not to continue with the commission. Stephen produced a large quantity of works around Great Britain, showing coastal installations and naval craft, including several works painted on-board submarines.{{cite web |author=National Museum of the Royal Navy|url=https://artuk.org/discover/stories/britains-submarines-in-paintings |title=Britain's submarines in paintings |date=1 December 2013|access-date=20 September 2017|work=Art UK}} He witnessed and sketched the 1944 Normandy landings, painted scenes in Caen and Courseulles after the invasion, and went on to record the assault on Walcheren Island in the Netherlands. Toward the end of 1945, he travelled to Norway and painted the wreck of the Tirpitz.{{cite book |author=Brain Foss |publisher=Yale University Press |date=2007 |title=War Paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain, 1939–1945 |isbn=978-0-300-10890-3}} In Norway, he also recorded captured naval bases and observed a number of mass graves of, mostly, Soviet prisoners of war.{{cite book|author1=Merion Harries |author2=Susie Harries |publisher=Michael Joseph, The Imperial War Museum & the Tate Gallery|year=1983|title=The War Artists, British Official War Art of the Twentieth Century |isbn=0-7181-2314-X}}
Later life
After the war, Bone found his style of painting somewhat out of fashion and, although he continued to paint, he found it difficult to get his work 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. Together they organised a mural painting course at Dartington. In 1957, Bone was appointed the director of the Hornsey College of Art.{{cite book|author=David Buckman|publisher=Art Dictionaries Ltd|year=1998|title=Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 1, A to L |isbn=0-95326-095-X}} He died of cancer on 15 September 1958 at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London.
Selected bibliography
- 1921: Mr Paul (Jonathan Cape), a novel by Gertrude Bone, woodcuts by Stephen Bone, {{OCLC|965634}}
- 1921: The Furrowed Earth (Chatto & Windus), by Gertrude Bone with woodcuts by Stephen Bone
- 1922: A Farmers' Life (Cape), by G. Bourne, illustrated by Stephen Bone
- 1923: Selected Poems (Cape), by W. H. Davis, illustrated by Stephen Bone
- 1924: Oasis (Cape), with Gertrude Bone
- 1925: Of the Western Isles (T. N. Foulis), "forty woodcuts by Stephen Bone, with letterpress by Gertrude Bone",
- 1928: The Hidden Orchis (London: Medici Society), with Gertrude Bone
- 1930: The Cope (Medici), with Gertrude Bone
- 1936: The Little Boy and His House (J. M. Dent), children's picture book by Bone and Mary Adshead, {{OCLC|70299772}}
- 1937: The West Coast of Scotland, Skye to Oban (Batsford); later issued by Faber as a Shell Guide
- 1939: Albion: an Artist's Britain (A. & C. Black)
- 1942: The Silly Snail and Other Stories (Dent), Bone and Adshead
- 1946: British Weather, Britain in Pictures no. 97 (Collins)
- 1948: The Military Orchid, (Bodley Head), by J.Brooke, illustrated by Stephen Bone
- 1951: The English and Their Country (Longmans, Green), Stephen Bone with illustrations by Muirhead Bone, {{OCLC|559578913}}
- 1953: The Little Boys and Their Boats (Dent), Bone and Adshead, {{OCLC|767530555}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category|Stephen Bone}}
- {{Art UK bio}}
- [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?f%5B0%5D=makerString%3ABone%2C%20Stephen&query= Works by Stephen Bone] in the Imperial War Museum collection
- {{LCAuth|no97065530|Stephen Bone|7|ue}} (including "from old catalog")
- [https://lccn.loc.gov/no2006055282 Gertrude Bone] at LC Authorities, 7 records, and [https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no2006-055282 at WorldCat]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bone, Stephen}}
Category:20th-century English male artists
Category:20th-century English painters
Category:Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art
Category:Artists from the London Borough of Hounslow
Category:English male painters
Category:English people of Scottish descent
Category:Mass media people from London
Category:People educated at Bedales School