Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1865 West Eyreton, Canterbury, New Zealand

Died: 1960 Canterbury, New Zealand

Year of Migration to the UK: 1901

Other name/s: Rosa Spencer Bower, Rosa M. Spencer Bower, Miss Rosa M. Dixon, Mrs E. Rosa Spencer Bower, R. M. Dixon, Rosa Dixon

Biography

Painter Rosa Spencer Bower (née Dixon) was born in 1865 in West Eyreton, a rural community in New Zealand’s Canterbury region. She was brought up on Eyrewell, the family’s sheep station, where her early artistic instruction came from her mother. Her father, Marmaduke Dixon, was a prominent local landowner, and her family background was one of relative privilege and connection. Spencer Bower first began exhibiting with the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1888, becoming a consistent presence in their annual shows until 1914. She also participated in exhibitions organised by the Otago Art Society, New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, and the 1889-90 New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin. In 1898, she formally enrolled at Canterbury College School of Art, where she studied alongside several key figures in New Zealand’s art scene. Among her peers was flower painter, Margaret Stoddart, with whom she developed a close friendship. In 1896, the pair embarked on a painting expedition to New Zealand’s west coast, sketching landscapes as they travelled.

In 1901, Spencer Bower moved to Europe to further her art education, arriving in England aboard the RMS Arcadia, and sharing the voyage with fellow New Zealand painter, Frances Hodgkins. Once in London, she enrolled at the Slade School of Art, where she studied under the influential draughtsman and surgeon-turned-art tutor, Henry Tonks. Spencer Bower later studied in Italy, attending classes in Rome and working with Signor Nardi. During this period, she developed a more fluid and spontaneous watercolour technique, which she applied to depictions of gardens and woodlands. After a brief trip back to New Zealand, she returned to England in 1904, joining Stoddart in the artist colony at St Ives, Cornwall, where another New Zealand-born painter, Dorothy Kate Richmond, had also settled. Immersed in this artistic community, Spencer Bower’s style evolved, as she continued to focus on watercolours of English gardens and wooded countryside.

Though based in Europe, Spencer Bower remained professionally connected to New Zealand, frequently submitting paintings to exhibitions in Canterbury. Her work is distinguished by its delicate luminosity and close observation of natural forms. Her watercolours, often depicting English woodlands, flower-filled gardens, and tranquil village scenes, show a refined sensitivity to light and colour. Favouring a soft palette and translucent washes, she excelled at conveying seasonal atmosphere, from the freshness of spring bluebells to the golden warmth of autumn foliage. Her compositions are often anchored by carefully rendered tree forms or architectural elements, but always maintain a lyrical attention to natural detail. The combination of technical restraint and decorative vibrancy places her firmly within the tradition of late nineteenth-century botanical and landscape watercolourists.

By 1904, Spencer Bower had settled in St Neots, Huntingdonshire, where she established a small practice teaching drawing and selling watercolours. That year, she married the considerably older civil engineer, Anthony Spencer Bower. A year later, around the age of 40, she gave birth to twins - Olivia, who would become a noted painter in her own right, and Anthony Marmaduke. During this period, she produced a series of hand-coloured postcards based on her paintings,and aligned herself with the British women’s suffrage movement, supporting both Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst. In 1914, the family moved to Boscombe, near Bournemouth on the south coast of England. With the outbreak of the First World War, Spencer Bower became involved in war relief efforts, regularly visiting wounded soldiers at the New Zealand General Hospital in Brockenhurst. She also welcomed groups of convalescing soldiers into her home for tea, offering hospitality and a sense of familiarity to those recovering far from their homeland.

In 1920, following her husband’s retirement and seeking greater financial security, Spencer Bower returned with her family to New Zealand, resettling in Christchurch. Drawing on her European experiences, she resumed painting and occasionally took on students. Her daughter Olivia saw her mother’s encouragement as instrumental in the development of her own artistic career. In her final years, Spencer Bower suffered from declining health, and in 1949, Olivia returned to Christchurch to care for her. Rosa Spencer Bower died in Canterbury, New Zealand in 1960. Her work is not represented in UK public collections currently, but archival items and artworks are held in New Zealand national collections.

Related books

Julie King, Olivia Spencer Bower: Making her own discoveries (Canterbury: Canterbury University Press, 2015)
Kate McGahey, Concise Dictionary of New Zealand Artists Painters, Printmakers, Sculptors (Wellington: Gilt Edge, 2000)
Una Platts, Nineteenth Century New Zealand Artists: A Guide and Handbooks (Christchurch: Avon Fine Prints, 1980)
Scholefield, Guy, ed., A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography : A–L (PDF). Vol. I (Wellington: Department of Internal Affairs, 1940), p. 210.

Related organisations

Slade School of Art (student)

Selected exhibitions

Group show, New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington, New Zealand (1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929)
Group show, Canterbury Society of Arts, Christchurch, New Zealand (1888-1914)
New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition (group show), Dunedin, New Zealand (1889-90)
Otago Art Society, New Zealand (dates tbc)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Rosa Spencer Bower]