Rowena Bush

This year marks the 90th birthday of one of Durban’s best-loved and most well known artists, Rowena Bush. Elizabeth Gordon Gallery in Florida Road will pay tribute to this remarkable lady with an exhibition of her paintings. (28 March to 4 April)


Meeting Rowena was a delightful experience. Still painting and a member of the Watercolour Society of South Africa, she shared generously her experiences over those 90 years.

Rowena was born in Ceylon in 1917. Her father was a tea planter and only at the age of 7 did she return with her family to England. For several years, a governess tutored her and she recalls learning numerous handcrafts. Only at the age of 10, did she first attend school. At the age of 16, she left school and attended Art School in Bristol. After three years of learning mainly drawing, she attended the London School of Interior design. What she learnt about architecture at this time, she found particularly useful. She worked in interior design in London for a year and then, during the depression, responded to an advert for a research job in Tanganyika. When war broke out a year later, she took up a teaching post in Kenya. Three years later, she left the school to get married and she and her husband moved back to Tanganyika. She recalls how the farmers provided food for the troops as they waited to leave for Ethiopia. They retired to farm in Kenya and then, eleven years later, in 1962, due to changes in education and a rise in violence, they relocated to Durban with their two sons.



Living in a flat in Durban and with her sons away at boarding school, Rowena began sketching in the Durban Bay area. She discovered a gallery on the Esplanade, where she began to exhibit. She also gave art lessons.

Rowena joined the NSA and attended portrait and life-drawing classes there on Saturday afternoons, where she met many well-known artists. She relates stories of traveling and painting with such people as Marj Bowen, Wendy Amm and Mary Stainbank.

Rowena is an honorary fellow of the watercolour society of South Africa; she prefers to paint from life and has undertaken numerous commissions to portray well-known scenes and buildings around KZN. Her paintings of the wild flowers of Tanganyika hang at Kew Gardens. Her paintings have been exhibited in East Africa, South Africa and abroad. We congratulate you on your 90th, Rowena.