Born 1931, London. Died 2024

Dower studied in London, initially in 1948 at St Martins School of Art before transferring a year later to Camberwell School of Art where she spent three years learning figurative painting in the tradition of the Euston Road Group of artists. She continued her studies at the Slade School of Art from 1952–1954.

Dower then taught at St Albans and Camberwell Schools of Art and at the Bath Academy of Art at Corsham; during this time she became increasingly dissatisfied with representational art and began to experiment with various form of abstraction. A turning point came at Corsham where a fellow teacher was Malcolm Hughes, a co-founder in the 1970s of the Systems Group whose work was created within a discipline of rational systems based on mathematical concepts. Dower adopted this constructivist method and for over forty years has used geometric forms, ratios, sequences, balance and rhythm as the basis of her paintings, reliefs and sculptures.

In 1966, Dower moved to Morocco to teach at the American School in Tangier; in 1976 she went to live in Portugal, returning to London periodically as a regular exhibitor at group and solo shows in the capital, as well as venues in Edinburgh, Paris, Stockholm, Washington DC, and Chicago. In 1993, she was featured in the exhibition Countervail 2 in the Mead Gallery at Warwick University. A major retrospective exhibition was held at the Eagle Gallery in London in 2012. The many public and private collections holding her work include the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Government Art Collection and the MondriaanHuis in Amersfoort, Holland.

Publication: Natalie Dower: Line of Enquiry Text by Alan Fowler, Preface by Mel Gooding, Published by EMH Arts, London 2012

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