George Elmslie Owen was born in 1899 in Stirling, central Scotland. He studied at Edinburgh’s George Watson’s College, where from 1915 was part of the cadet corps and in 1919, promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. After serving in World War One he returned to education and began studying medicine at Edinburgh University though transferred soon after to the College of Art.
Between 1923 and 1925, his practice became heavily influenced by Fernand Leger and Amedée Ozenfant while working with them at L'Académie Moderne, Paris. Their radical, Modernist style is echoed clearly within Elmslie Owen’s own Purist and Cubist inspired still lifes, where objects and landscapes have been reduced to minimal form, bold colour and outline.
Elmslie Owen was elected an RBA in 1933 and taught at the Westminster School of Art. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, he worked for the Ministry of Home Security as a Camouflage Officer and Secretary of the War Artists Committee. Ill health towards the 1940s meant that Elmslie Owen ceased painting in oils, and instead painted primarily in gouache, which he could do from his bed. His declining health saw him move from London to Sussex in 1946, where he taught part-time at Brighton College of Art and Crafts until 1962. His works have been shown at London’s Royal Academy (Exotic Fish, oil on canvas) and his 1938 oil painting Abstract, is currently held in the Birmingham Museums Trust.