J. Bowyer Bell (November 15, 1931 – August 23, 2003) was an American
historian,
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
and
art critic
An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...
. He was best known as a
terrorism expert.
Background and early life
Bell was born into an
Episcopalian
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...
family in 1931 in
New York City.
The family later moved to
Alabama, from where Bell attended
Washington and Lee University in
Lexington, Virginia
Lexington is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 7,320. It is the county seat of Rockbridge County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines ...
, majoring in history.
He also studied art, and discovered he had "total visual memory"—the equivalent of
perfect pitch in a singer.
His first solo art showing was in the college library in his senior year.
He considered becoming a professional artist and made frequent visits to New York to visit other artists, including his hero
Franz Kline, but committed to academia.
Bell graduated in 1953, and began studying the
Spanish Civil War at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
in
North Carolina.
Bell interrupted his studies at Duke after being awarded a
Fulbright
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
, and travelled to
Italy to study at the
University of Rome.
Bell travelled Europe interviewing veterans of the Spanish Civil War, and in Rome he mixed with writers and artists including
Cy Twombly.
After returning to America, Bell completed his
doctorate at Duke in 1958.
Professional career
After graduating, Bell began teaching at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Harvard University and
Trinity School in
Manhattan.
In 1962, he married Charlotte Rockey, an
Egyptologist, and they moved into an apartment in Manhattan.
In New York, Bell socialised with the likes of
Robert Rauschenberg
Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
,
Jasper Johns,
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian a ...
and
Frank Stella at the
Cedar Tavern
The Cedar Tavern (or Cedar Street Tavern) was a bar and restaurant at the eastern edge of Greenwich Village, New York City. In its heyday, known as a gathering place for avant garde writers and artists, it was located at 24 University Place, ne ...
.
Bell exhibited his paintings and collages at the Allan Stone Gallery, and collected paintings and sculptures by artists including
John Chamberlain.
Bell was fascinated by global
terrorism conflicts and decided to "write
isway back into academia".
While researching the
Middle East, he discovered that the
Irgun drew inspiration from the
Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-mil ...
, and began to study the IRA.
Bell and his family travelled to
County Carlow
County Carlow ( ; ga, Contae Cheatharlach) is a county located in the South-East Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Carlow is the second smallest and the third least populous of Ireland's 32 traditional counties. Carlow Cou ...
in the
Republic of Ireland in 1965, where he spent several months researching the
Republican Movement.
He discovered little had been published on Irish history after 1922, and the state archives were closed until the 1980s.
He began research in the
National Library of Ireland, and also interviewed
Irish republicans
Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.
The developm ...
in a
Kilkenny
Kilkenny (). is a city in County Kilkenny, Ireland. It is located in the South-East Region and in the province of Leinster. It is built on both banks of the River Nore. The 2016 census gave the total population of Kilkenny as 26,512.
Kilken ...
public house and hotels in
Dublin.
In 1966, his first book was published; ''Besieged: Seven Cities Under Siege''. That same year he returned to Dublin with his family to continue his research. In 1967, he made his first visit to
Northern Ireland where he attended a meeting of the banned
Republican Clubs.
In 1969, he published his second book on the Middle East; ''The Long War: Israel and the Arabs since 1946''.
The Troubles began in Northern Ireland in 1969, and Bell's ''The Secret Army: the IRA 1916–1970'' was published the following year, and was one of the first detailed histories of the IRA, along with ''The IRA'' by
Tim Pat Coogan, which was also published in 1970.
After the publication of ''The Secret Army'' Bell lived mostly in New York and
London and continued to visit Ireland annually.
While researching in Ireland, Bell was
tear gassed and shot at during riots in Belfast, which he described as "field work a bit too near the centre of the field".
Bell continued to travel extensively, researching in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia as part of a career described as "talking to terrorists, gunmen, mad dogs and mercenaries".
He was held hostage in
Jordan, shot at in
Lebanon, kidnapped in
Yemen and deported from
Kenya.
''Horn of Africa: Strategic Magnet in the Seventies'' was published in 1973. In 1974, he began writing with the "Insight Team" of ''
The Sunday Times'' about the war in
Cyprus. This was followed by the 1976 publication of ''On Revolt: Strategies of National Liberation'', for which he interviewed over a hundred participants from revolts against the
British Empire.
''Terror Out of Zion,'' published in 1977, covered the
Irgun and
Lehi
Lehi (; he, לח"י – לוחמי חרות ישראל ''Lohamei Herut Israel – Lehi'', "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel – Lehi"), often known pejoratively as the Stern Gang,"This group was known to its friends as LEHI and to its enemie ...
's
guerrilla campaign
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tacti ...
in the
British Mandate of Palestine.
Following the death of his first wife in 1981, Bell married an Irishwoman, Norah Browne from
County Kerry
County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...
, whom he had met while filming his 1972 documentary, ''The Secret Army''.
He continued to work in other areas; he was an
adjunct professor
An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and
the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...
at
Columbia University's
School of International and Public Affairs, and he held the position of
research associate at the university's
Institute of War and Peace Studies.
He was a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, mi ...
and founded a consultancy, the International Analysis Centre, whose clients included the
United States Department of State, the
United States Department of Justice, the
Central Intelligence Agency and American television networks.
He continued to work as an independent scholar, carrying out research with the aid of grants; he received over seven
Guggenheim Fellowships and turned down a
Rockefeller Humanities Award.
Bell also continued his career in painting, receiving a
Pollock-Krasner Fellowship and exhibiting work inspired by the conflicts he witnessed.
From 1979 onward, his paintings were exhibited annually at the Taylor Gallery in Dublin, and he also held exhibitions in Manhattan and
Hungary.
Bell launched a career as an art critic in the 1990s, writing for New York-based journal ''Review'', and he was also commissioned to write catalogue entries for galleries and museum retrospectives.
Bell continued writing about the IRA and the ongoing events of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and in 1994 he was a speaker at
West Belfast Festival
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west ...
, where he suggested the IRA was the only organisation in Northern Ireland that understood its problems.
In 1996, he made headlines in Ireland and abroad after meeting with the Army Council of the
dissident republican
Dissident republicans, renegade republicans, anti-Agreement republicans or anti-ceasefire republicans ( ga, poblachtach easaontach) are Irish republicans who do not support the current peace agreements in Northern Ireland. The agreements follow ...
splinter group
Continuity IRA at a secret rural location in Ireland.
Former IRA member
Anthony McIntyre
Anthony McIntyre (born 27 June 1957) is a former Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer, writer and historian. He was imprisoned for murder for 18 years in Long Kesh, spending four of those years on the no-wash protest. After his release fr ...
claimed Bell had a pro-Irish republican bias, with McIntyre stating "Bowyer Bell's long familiarity with Irish Republicanism once prompted the caustic comment that there are none more vindictive than a reformed gunman".
As well as releasing updated versions of ''The Secret Army'', Bell continued to write about other aspects of the conflicts in Ireland and the Middle East.
''Cheating and Deception'' was published in 1991, ''The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence 1967–1992'' in 1993, ''In Dubious Battle: The Dublin and Monaghan Bombings 1972–1974'' and ''Back to the Future: The Protestants and a United Ireland'' in 1996, and ''Dynamics of the Armed Struggle'' in 1998.
With the aid of a grant from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bell returned to the Middle East in 2000 to conduct research for his next book, on
Egyptian
Islamic terrorism
Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Incidents and fatalities f ...
.
As with ''The Secret Army'' first being published shortly after the start of the Troubles, Bell's timing was again good with ''Murders on the Nile: The World Trade Center and Global Terrorism'' being published in 2002, shortly after the
September 11, 2001, attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
on the United States by
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
.
Death
Bell died from
renal failure in a New York hospital on 23 August 2003.
His paintings continue to be exhibited since his death.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, J Bowyer
1931 births
2003 deaths
American art critics
American expatriates in Italy
20th-century American historians
American male non-fiction writers
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
Deaths from kidney failure
Columbia University faculty
Duke University alumni
Harvard University faculty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty
Sapienza University of Rome alumni
Washington and Lee University alumni
Painters from New York City
20th-century American male writers
Historians from New York (state)
Fulbright alumni