Eric Ravilious
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Eric William Ravilious (22 July 1903 - 2 September 1942) was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver.
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[edit] Early life
Ravilious was born 22 July, 1903 in Acton, London.
[edit] Career
Ravilious studied at Eastbourne School of Art, and at the Royal College of Art, where he studied under Paul Nash and became close friends with Edward Bawden.
He began his working life as a muralist, first coming to notice as an artist in 1924. He went on to become one of the best-known artists of the 1930s. His watercolours, painted with a fine stippling technique within compositions that give light or dark features a telling role, are thought by some to have an almost uncanny loveliness. He was the leading light of wood-engraving in England at that time, and undertook ceramic designs for Wedgwood. He also designed graphics for London Transport.
[edit] Death
Ravilious was an official war artist in World War II and received a commission in the Royal Marines. He was killed 2 September 1942[1] at the age of 39 while accompanying a Royal Air Force air sea rescue mission off Iceland that failed to return to its base.
[edit] Legacy
Neglected for many years after the war, a major retrospective of Ravilious' work was staged by The Imperial War Museum in 2004.
Original prints by Ravilious are difficult to find and only original lithographs from the book High Street printed by Curwen Press in 1938 are occasionally found today; this wonderful series comprises 24 views of shops which were to be found on High Streets of the time; none of these original lithographs was ever signed.
The collected edition of all the Ravilious woodcuts of 1972, also printed by Curwen Press, contains photolitho reproductions of the original prints. The carved blocks were largely destroyed and the few that remained were considered to be too fragile to print from.
Ravilious engraved more than four hundred illustrations and drew over forty lithographic designs for books and publications during his lifetime.[1]
[edit] Personal life
For much of his life, Ravilious lived in Eastbourne, where he is commemorated by a blue plaque on the wall of his childhood home.
He married Eileen Lucy "Tirzah" Garwood (1908-1951) in 1930. Tirzah Garwood was also a noted artist and engraver. Between 1930 and 1932 the couple lived in Hammersmith, London, where there is a blue plaque on the wall of their house at the corner of Upper Mall and Weltje Road.
In 1932 Eric and Tirzah moved to rural Essex, where they initially lodged with Edward Bawden at Great Bardfield. In 1934 they purchased Bank House at Castle Hedingham, and a blue plaque now commemorates this.
Ravilious' second son, James Ravilious, became a noted English photographer.
In 1946, four years after Eric Ravilious's death, his widow married Henry Swanzy.
[edit] Further reading
- Alan Powers, Oliver Green. Away We Go! Advertising London's Transport: Eric Ravilious & Edward Bawden (2006)
- Alan Powers. Eric Ravilious: Imagined Realities (2004)
- Freda Constable. The England of Eric Ravilious (2003)
- Richard Morphet. Eric Ravilious in Context (2002)
- Submarine dream: Lithographs and letters (1996)
- Robert Harling. Ravilious and Wedgwood: The Complete Wedgwood Designs of Eric Ravilious (1995)
- Helen Binyon. Eric Ravilious. Memoir of an Artist; The Lutterworth Press 2007, Cambridge; ISBN 9780718829209
- R.Dalrymple. Ravilious and Wedgewood, London 1986
- Eric Ravilious, 1903-42: A Re-assessment of his Life and Work (exh. cat. by P. Andrew, Eastbourne Towner A.G. & Local History Museum (1986)
- J. M.Richards. The Wood Engravings of Eric Ravilious, London 1972
[edit] References
- ^ "DESIGN", by Edward Bawden, Published by Antique Collector's Club, Woodbridge, England, ISBN 1 85149 500 2
[edit] External links
The 24 prints from High Street are displayed here.
