Alfred Owles

1894 - 1978

BiographyPainter, illustrator. Born in Nottingham, England on July 4, 1894. Owles studied at Nottingham Academy of Fine Art. He immigrated to the U.S. shortly before the outbreak of WWI. During the war, he served in the Army Air Service as an aerial photographer and gunner. It was this experience that piqued his interest in aviation in his paintings. After the war, Owles opened a studio in San Francisco and, in 1924, moved across the bay to Marin County as a resident of Fairfax and Novato. During WWII, his illustrations appeared in Life, Look, and Collier's. Primarily a watercolorist, he specialized in illustrations of airplanes. However, during his later years, he concentrated on landscapes of Marin County. Owles died in Novato on May 29, 1978. Exhibited: Gump's, SF; San Diego FA Gallery; Maxwell Galleries, SF. 1966 (solo); several one-man shows in U.S. Works held: U.S. Air Force Training Command, Pensacola. FL: the Pentagon; U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs.

Source: WWAA 1940; SF Chronicle, 5-29-1978 and Marin Co. lndependent-Journal-27-1978 (obits).

Person TypeIndividual