Due to political developments in Germany, Erwin Bowien decided to leave his homeland and go into exile in Holland. After several small stages, he fixed himself in the town of Egmond a.d. Hoef near Alkmaar. He rented a small house in which the French philosopher Descartes is said to have lived during his exile. It was located exactly opposite the ruins of the castle of the Counts of Egmond. Our foundation supported this project by producing high-quality reproductions of works by the artist. We were also able to obtain publication rights from the copyright holder for the benefit of this project.

A small documentation about Erwin Bowien's time in Egmond aan Hoef can be found as a download of the book:  Peter J. H. Van den Berg, De schilders van Egmond. W. Books, Zwolle, 2021, ISBN 9789462583931.

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The painter Erwin Bowien and his great pupil. An artist returns from exile. Erwin Bowien, the pacifist and philanthropist leaves Germany as the country takes the path of the Third Reich. The old front-line soldier from the First World War is a convinced pacifist and does not want to have anything in common with the new Germany.

In his exile in Holland, he is overrun by the Wehrmacht and in the end goes underground, lastly in Kreuzthal-Eisenbach, a village in the Allgäu. There he recognizes the talent of little Bettina. When he came to Solingen in 1945, he founded a small Artists' Colony. His most famous pupil, Bettina Heinen-Ayech, went to Algeria in the 1960s and became a legend there. A journey through time to a lost world - in paintings and historical photographs.