Nicola Gordon Bowe

Nicola (Nikki) Gordon Bowe Hon FMGP (1948 – 4 January 2018) was an art historian, author and educator. She was a leading authority on the Arts and Crafts movement in Ireland, most notably the revival of stained glass as an art form. She was also known for her extensive research and publications on stained glass artists Harry Clarke and Wilhelmina Geddes.

Bowe died unexpectedly on 4 January 2018 in Dublin, Ireland after a short illness.

Bowe's book on Geddes was shortlisted for Book of the Year Apollo Awards in 2016.

During her 30-plus year career, Bowe was a lecturer in the history of design at the Faculty of the School Visual Culture, National College of Art and Design in Dublin. She was a founding director of the master's course in Design History and Applied Arts. She was also a visiting professor at the School of Art and Design Research Institute at the University of Ulster. She held research fellowships at the University of Wales, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the Huntington Library, California and the Guild of St. George (England) She also served as Ireland's representative for an international UNESCO study group for Art Nouveau architecture. Dr Bowe was named an Honorary Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters in 2001 and served for many years on the Editorial Advisory Board for The Journal of Stained Glass, which published her obituary in the latest issue.

Early 20th century stained glass artist, Harry Clarke, whose work Bowe rediscovered in various Irish rural churches, was the subject of Bowe's doctoral thesis in 1982. Her first book on Clarke was published in 1983. Her investigation into Clarke's life and work was the beginning of a long career of comprehensive research into the Arts and Crafts movement in Ireland. Bowe's influential book on the Life & Work of Harry Clarke, first published by Irish Academic Press in 1989, "re-established the reputation of this exceptional Irish artist of the early 20th century".

Nicola Gordon married architect and garden historian Patrick "Paddy" Bowe at Leixlip Castle in 1974. They were based between Ranelagh, South Dublin and Glenmalure, County Wicklow. Their daughter Venetia (b. 1991) is an actress.

Bowe was born in 1948 in Stafford, England to London councillor Richard Gordon and headmistress Elizabeth Smedley and raised in St Albans, Hertfordshire. She attended St Albans High School for Girls and completed her A levels at an English school in Rome, Italy. Inspired by her Irish roots in Clonmel on her paternal side, she decided to go to university in Ireland. She studied French and Italian as an undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin, earning a BA (honours) and later obtaining a MA and PhD in art history.