Jessie Boswell

Jessie Boswell was born in Leeds in March 1881 and passed away in Moncrivello in September 1956. Even though she was an english painter, she spent te majority of her life in Italy, having moved there in 1906 to join her sister Gertrude, who had married Gaudenzio Sella. The only woman in the Group of Six Painters of Turin, she joined in 1929 alongside Gigi Chessa, Nicola Galante, Carlo Levi, Francesco Menzio, and Enrico Paulucci. She had previously exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1924 as a "foreign artist" in the Italian Pavilion, as well as in 1926 and 1928.

The themes of her painting include interiors of the Sella home and the houses of Gualino, characterized by bright and cold light sources, flowers painted in the foreground of interiors used as elements of luminous and chromatic condensation, and "plein air" paintings such as the work in the Iannaccone collection, a Marina from 1929. Cipriano Efisio Oppo, writing in "La Tribuna" in 1929, remarked: "Finally, Mrs. Jessie Boswell, with a tricolor flag displayed in 'Via Mentana,' compels us to make an effort to silence our sensitive hearts as Italians. Mrs. Boswell has joined the small Turin group, which denotes her intelligence. [...] a tranquil and honest painting, not at all, God save us, modern in the diabolical sense that this word has been assigned..."