Erwin Bowien—Nostalgia for Egmond

Erwin Bowien—Nostalgia for Egmond exhibition at Egmond Museum from April 26–November 2, 2025.

Erwin Bowien (1899–1972) was a German open-air painter and pacifist who grew up in Switzerland. He decided to leave Germany in the winter of 1933, shocked by the Nazis’ rise to power. He moved to the Netherlands, settling in the small town of Egmond aan den Hoef near Alkmaar in 1934. This historic Artists’ Colony was most famous for its American impressionist painter, George Hitchcock (1850–1913). During this time, Bowien perfected his pastel painting technique and earned the nickname “Master with the Pastel Pencil”.

As a dedicated plein air painter, he tirelessly explored the region between Amsterdam and Hoorn, creating hundreds of paintings and drawings. Following the Wehrmacht’s occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, he was forced to go into hiding. This marked the start of a very challenging period for the artist, during which the Reich Chamber of Culture banned him from exhibiting and the Gestapo confiscated his paintings.

Not only was Bowien one of many German exiles who found refuge in the Netherlands, he was also one of the last painters of the Egmond Artists' Colony. He captured the breathtakingly beautiful dune landscape around Egmond aan Zee, the vast North Holland horizons and the frequently stormy North Sea in many haunting paintings.

He quickly gained a large circle of friends and received numerous public and private commissions. Some of his paintings are held in the collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Westfries Museum in Hoorn, and the Royal Collection in The Hague.

The idea to stage an exhibition of Dutch works by the artist Erwin Bowien at the museum, with a focus on his time in exile in the Netherlands, was born in 2023.

The exhibition Erwin Bowien—Nostalgia for Egmond began on April 26 and runs until November 2, 2025.

In 2021, 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 has dedicated part of this book to the painter Erwin Bowien, who contributed to the fame of this Artists’ Colony from 1933 to 1940 (Peter J. H. Van den Berg, De schilders van Egmond, W. Books, Zwolle, 2021, ISBN 9789462583931).

Events
Travelling the world: The Solingen Artists’ Colony: October 31, 2024–April 27, 2026
Exhibition at the Gemäldegalerie Dachau about the Solingen Artists’ Colony: Erwin Bowien, Bettina Heinen-Ayech and Amud Uwe Millies.

Bettina Heinen-Ayech: From Solingen to the Orient: January 25–May 11
Exhibition at the Kunstverein Coburg e.V. about Bettina Heinen-Ayech.

Longing for distant shores: May 18–June 29
Exhibition about the The Solingen Artists’ Colony at the Museum Villa Stahmer.

Between two Worlds: Bettina Heinen-Ayech: July 6–September 7
Exhibition at the Städtische Galerie in Schwalenberg about Bettina Heinen-Ayech.