The Great Bardfield Artists were a community of artists who lived in 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...

, a village in north west 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...

, 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...

, during the middle years of the 20th century.

The principal artists who lived there between 1930 and 1970 were John Aldridge

John Aldridge (artist)

John Aldridge RA was an accomplished oil painter, skilled draftsmen, wallpaper designer, and esteemed art teacher in the United Kingdom. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1954 and a Royal Academician in 1963....

 RA

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, 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...

, George Chapman

George Chapman

George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...

, Stanley Clifford-Smith

Stanley Clifford-Smith

Stanley Clifford-Smith was an English Expressionist painter and textile designer who was active as an artist in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.-Early life:...

, Audrey Cruddas

Audrey Cruddas

Audrey Cruddas was an English costume and scene designer, painter and potter. Born in Johannesburg she moved to England with her parents when she was an infant. After leaving school she studied art at St. John's Wood School of Art, Royal Academy Schools and Bram Shaw School of Drawing and...

, Walter Hoyle, Eric Ravilious

Eric Ravilious

Eric William Ravilious was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver.-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,...

, Sheila Robinson, Michael Rothenstein

Michael Rothenstein

William Michael Rothenstein RA was an English printmaker, painter and art teacher.-Early life:Born in Hampstead, London, on 19 March 1908, he was the youngest of four children born to the celebrated artist, Sir William Rothenstein and his wife, Alice Knewstub.-Art:He was home schooled and studied...

, Kenneth Rowntree

Kenneth Rowntree

Kenneth Rowntree was a British artist.A Quaker, he was a conscientious objector during the Second World War. He worked for the War Artists' Advisory Committee.He one of the Great Bardfield Artists.Reference:...

 and Marianne Straub

Marianne Straub

Marianne Straub was one of the leading designers of textiles in Britain during the 1940s, 50s and 60s.She was born in the village of Amriswil, Switzerland on 23 September 1909. Her father was a textile merchant so it was no surprise that she was soon attracted to a career in textiles. She studied...

. Other artists associated with the group include Duffy Ayers

Duffy Ayers

Duffy Ayers is an English portrait painter.She was one of a pair of identical twin girls born to her American mother and Irish father, and has been known for most of her life by the nickname "Duffy"....

, John Bolam

John Bolam

John Bolam is generally rated as one of Britain’s lesser post war artists.-Background:John Bolam was born in 1922 in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. He originally studied painting at Hornsey School of Art and furniture design at High Wycombe School of Art...

, Bernard Cheese, Tirzah Garwood, Joan Glass

Joan Glass

Elizabeth Joan Glass , was an English textile designer and painter.-Youth:Glass was born in Orpington, Kent. She was the oldest of three daughters born to John Pomeroy Glass and Edith Mary Muirhead. Her father, was a senior partner and later chairman of James Templeton & Co, then one of the leading...

, David Low

David Low

Sir David Alexander Cecil Low was a New Zealand political cartoonist and caricaturist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom for many years. Low was a self-taught cartoonist...

 and Laurence Scarfe. Great Bardfield Artists were diverse in style but shared a love for figurative art

Figurative art

Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...

, making the group distinct from the better known St Ives

St Ives, Cornwall

St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a shift in commercial...

 art community in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, who, after the war, were chiefly dominated by abstractionists.

During the 1950s the Great Bardfield Artists organised a series of large ‘open house’ exhibitions which attracted national and international press attention. Positive reviews and the novelty of viewing modernist art works in the artists own homes led to thousands visiting the remote village during the summer exhibitions of 1954, 1955 and 1958. As well as these large shows the Great Bardfield Artists held exhibitions of their work in Cambridge (1956) and Bristol (1959). The artists also organised a multi-city tour of England and Ireland during 1957 & 1958. The early 1960s saw the majority of the Great Bardfield artists leave the village.

Legacy

In 1985 the Fry Art Gallery

Fry Art Gallery

The Fry Art Gallery is an art gallery located in Saffron Walden, Essex, England. In its present form the gallery was established in 1985 and it is managed by the Fry Art Gallery Society...

 at Saffron Walden

Saffron Walden

Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is located north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and approx north of London...

, Essex was established with the expressed aim of highlighting the paintings, prints, wallpapers, books, fabrics and ceramics made by the Great Bardfield art community between 1930 and 1970. Many of the artists mentioned above have had exhibitions at the Fry Art Gallery and elsewhere.