Eric William Ravilious was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver.

Career

Ravilious studied at Eastbourne School of Art, and at the Royal College of Art

Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...

, where he studied under Paul Nash

Paul Nash (artist)

Paul Nash was a British landscape painter, surrealist and war artist, as well as a book-illustrator, writer and designer of applied art. He was the older brother of the artist John Nash.-Early life:...

 and became close friends with Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden, CBE, RA was a British painter, illustrator and graphic artist. He was also famous for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture...

.

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

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 at that time, and undertook ceramic designs for Wedgwood

Wedgwood

Wedgwood, strictly speaking Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a pottery firm owned by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity company based in New York City, USA. Wedgwood was founded on May 1, 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood and in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an...

. He also designed graphics for London Transport

London Passenger Transport Board

The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for public transport in London, UK, and its environs from 1933 to 1948...

.

He was inspired by the landscape of the South Downs

South Downs

The South Downs is a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen Valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the east. It is bounded on its northern side by a steep escarpment, from whose...

 around Beddingham

Beddingham

Glynde and Beddingham is a civil parish in the Lewes district of East Sussex.-Governance:On a local level, Glynde and Beddingham is governed by Glynde and Beddingham Parish Council. Council meetings are held every two months in the Beddingham Reading Room. Their responsibilities include footpaths,...

. He frequently returned to Furlongs, the cottage of Peggy Angus

Peggy Angus

Peggy Angus was the popular name of Margaret MacGregor Angus. a 20th century artist and educator.-Early life:...

. He considered that his time at Furlongs "...altered my whole outlook and way of painting, I think because the colour of the landscape was so lovely and the design so beautifully obvious ... that I simply had to abandon my tinted drawings". Some of his most famous works, such as Tea at Furlongs, were painted there.

He produced a woodcut of two Victorian gentlemen playing cricket, which has appeared on the front cover of each edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...

from 1938 to the current day.

Death

Ravilious was an official war artist

War artist

A war artist depicts some aspect of war through art; this might be a pictorial record or it might commemorate how "war shapes lives." War artists have explored a visual and sensory dimension of war which is often absent in written histories or other accounts of warfare.- Definition and context:A...

 in World War II and received a commission as a Captain in the Royal Marines

Royal Marines

The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...

. He was killed in 1942 at the age of 39 while accompanying a Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 air sea rescue mission off Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 that failed to return to its base.

Legacy

Although Ravilious's work was neglected for many years after the war, a major retrospective exhibition 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.

Personal life

Ravilious was the son of Frank and Emma (née Ford) Ravilious.

For much of his life, he lived in Eastbourne

Eastbourne

Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...

, where he is commemorated by a blue plaque

Blue plaque

A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....

 on the wall of his childhood home. he grew to love it and painted many of his works there.

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

Hammersmith

Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...

, London, where there is a blue plaque

Blue plaque

A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....

 on the wall of their house at the corner of Upper Mall and Weltje Road.

In 1932, Eric and Tirzah Revilious moved to rural Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, where they initially lodged with Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden, CBE, RA was a British painter, illustrator and graphic artist. He was also famous for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture...

 at Great Bardfield

Great Bardfield

Great Bardfield is a large village in Essex, England.The Great Lodge at Bardfield is a Grade II listed building, which built in the 16th century and was given to Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII as one of several properties as part of a generous settlement for an amicable divorce. The grounds include...

. In 1934, they purchased Bank House at Castle Hedingham

Castle Hedingham

Castle Hedingham is a small village in northeast Essex, England, located four miles west of Halstead and is situated in the Colne Valley on the ancient road from Colchester, Essex, to Cambridge....

, and a blue plaque now commemorates this.

Ravilious had three children: John Ravilious; photographer James Ravilious

James Ravilious

-Early life:Ravilious was born in Eastbourne, the second son of the neo-romantic artist Eric Ravilious.Having previously studied as an accountant, Ravilious made a career change and entered into St Martin's School of Art, London, in 1959 under the assumed name of Souryer...

; and Anne Ullmann, editor of books on her parents and their work.

In 1946, four years after Eric Ravilious's death, his widow married Henry Swanzy.

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
• Alan Powers, James Russell. Eric Ravilious: The Story of High Street (2008)
• Anne Ullmann (ed.) Ravilious at war : the complete work of Eric Ravilious, September 1939 - September 1942, contributions from Barry and Saria Viney, Christopher Whittick and Simon Lawrence, foreword by Brian Sewell. Huddersfield, Fleece, (2002) ISBN 0948375701
• James Russell, Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs (edited by Tim Mainstone), Mainstone Press, Norwich (2009); ISBN 9780955277733

External links

• High Street lithographs - The 24 prints from High Street are displayed here.
• Eric Ravilious
• Great Bardfield Parish Council