 One painting in particular, "Croatian and Muslim", detailing a rape created controversy partly because of its explicit subject matter but also because Howson had painted it from the victims' accounts.He was the official war painter at the Kosovo War for the "London Times".In more recent years his work has exhibited strong religious themes which some say is linked to the treatment of his alcoholism and drug addiction at the Castle Craig Hospital in Peebles in 2000, after which he converted to Christianity.