Introducing 'Ravilious in Pictures'

In a recent post about the catalogue for 'Ravilious' at Dulwich, a reviewer noted that there were perhaps some opportunities missed to discuss locations and other details relevant to particular paintings. This criticism may be valid but if you're looking for more in-depth discussion of individual Ravilious watercolours, don't despair!

Much of what I know about this elusive artist and his deceptively simple watercolours I learnt during the four years I spent working on the series 'Ravilious in Pictures' for the Mainstone Press. Actually there was never supposed to be a series. One book simply led to another, until we ended up with a trilogy of four books. Each is a kind of exhibition in book form, featuring twenty watercolours with accompanying essays, and a couple of other paintings for good measure.

The aim was to talk about Ravilious's work in ways suggested by the watercolours themselves, looking at social history and biography rather than art history per se. You can see a couple of sample essays here, and here.

When it came to writing the 'Ravilious' catalogue I naturally had different things to say, but the four books are well worth looking at if you've fallen under the spell of this alluring artist and want to know more about particular aspects of his work. All four books draw inspiration both from the paintings and from the artist's marvellous letters, as edited by his daughter Anne Ullmann, and published by the Fleece Press. The volumes and the paintings included are as follows:

Sussex and the Downs (a study of Ravilious's downland paintings, with reference to interwar social/landscape history, and some amusing interludes):
Firle Beacon, Furlongs, Interior at Furlongs, Waterwheel, Downs in Winter, Cement Works 2, Caravans, Chalk Paths, Greenhouse: Cyclamen and Tomatoes, Mount Caburn, Wiltshire Landscape, Beachy Head, Cuckmere Haven, Tea at Furlongs, The Wilmington Giant, The Westbury Horse, Train Landscape, Vale of the White Horse, Chalk Figure near Weymouth, The Cerne Giant.

The War Paintings (focusing on his wartime career, and the places and people he encountered - some proper history in here!):
Observation Post, Warship in Dry Dock, Ship's Screw on a Railway Truck, Dangerous Work at Low Tide, Barrage Balloons Outside a British Port, Norway 1940, HMS Glorious in the Arctic, Ark Royal in Action, Ward Room No1, Coastal Defences, Coastal Defences (2), No1 Map Corridor, Bombing the Channel Ports, Convoy Passing an Island, Morning on the Tarmac, RNAS Sick Bay Dundee, Spitfires at Sawbridgeworth, Corporal Stediford's Pigeon Loft, Runway Perspective, Hurricanes in Flight.




A Country Life (the most domestic of the books, exploring Eric and Tirzah's life in Essex):
Prospect from an Attic, Two Women in a Garden, The Attic Bedroom, Tractor, Garden Path, No.29 Bus, Back Gardens, Friesian Bull, The Brickyard, Hull's Mill, Butcher's Shop, Train Going Over a Bridge at Night, Halstead Road in Snow, Vicarage, Village Street, Salt Marsh, Late August Beach, Ironbridge Interior, Tree Trunk and Wheelbarrow, Ironbridge at Ewenbridge.




A Travelling Artist (following Rav's travels around Britain and beyond, in search of 'a good place'):
November 5th, Strawberry Nets, River Thames, Buoys and Grappling Hook, Channel Steamer Leaving Harbour, Newhaven Harbour, Greenwich Observatory, Wet Afternoon, Waterwheel, The Duke of Hereford's Knob, Geraniums and Carnations, Buscot Park, Room at the William the Conqueror, Lifeboat, Dungeness, Bristol Quay, Belle Tout Interior, Pilot Boat, Leaving Scapa Flow.

If you'd like to know more about any of the books, or their availability (I believe they're all in print as I write this), please get in touch via the email address on my Profile page, or visit The Mainstone Press. Thanks!

Ravilious at Hungerford Books

'Paul Nash in Pictures: Landscape and Dream'

Paul Nash, Event on the Downs, 1934-5

Paul Nash in Pictures: Landscape and Dream celebrates the life and work of Paul Nash (1889-1946), an artist of energy and vision who created iconic paintings of both world wars and explored in inimitable style the ideas and issues of the interwar years. After a period of neglect following his death, Nash’s reputation is in the ascendant again, but though we appreciate the quality of his paintings, we have perhaps lost sight of their humanity.

Bringing a fresh eye to the artist’s legacy, Paul Nash in Pictures: Landscape and Dream goes behind the scenes of twenty-two paintings to explore Nash’s life, the places and people he knew, and the times in which he lived. The book draws on diverse sources, from published books to correspondence, to create an intimate portrait of a passionate, funny, supremely imaginative artist.

This approach will be familiar to readers of the Ravilious in Pictures series published by the Mainstone Press, and the book has been produced in a similar style and with the same attention to detail. In this, the first of two proposed books on Nash, we focus on the artist’s oil paintings – the work in which he explored most thoroughly the ideas that preoccupied him. Well-known paintings like ‘The Battle of Britain’ are included alongside pictures that are reproduced for the first time. A second volume will address the artist’s watercolours, so that the two books together form a unique biography of Paul Nash – a life in pictures.

Paul Nash in Pictures: Landscape and Dream will be published by The Mainstone Press in October 2011. James Russell is available for talks and book signings. Please contact the publisher for details.

What the critics say about Ravilious in Pictures:

‘Beautiful’ (Stella magazine, Sunday Telegraph, Dec 2009)

‘Ravilious’s watercolour landscapes of the South Downs … are beautifully reproduced here 
alongside insightful essays…’ (London Review of Books, Jan 2010)

 ‘James Russell’s writing has the clarity and concision of the paintings, and is both properly informative and enjoyably readable... Glorious.’ (Andrew Lambirth, The Art Newspaper, Sept 2010)

‘A vivid portrait of the artist’ (Country Life magazine, Dec 2010)

‘Fantastic’ (Emily Rhodes, The Spectator Arts Blog, Dec 2010)

‘Alluring… convivial…’(Paul Laity, The Guardian, May 2011)

Eric Ravilious: A Life in Pictures

I've put together an illustrated talk based on the 'Ravilious in Pictures' series; you can hear/see it at the Yellow-Lighted Book Festival in Nailsworth, Glos on Friday 10 June or in Saffron Walden on 13 July. This date is being arranged by the Fry Art Gallery, venue TBC.

I'll also be signing copies of 'Ravilious in Pictures: A Country Life', volume 3 in the series, at Ben Pentreath's shop in Bloomsbury, on May 11 at 5.30pm.

This is a follow-up to illustrated talks I've given at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne and the St Bride Library in London, and it should be a lot of fun. What I do is select some particularly interesting Ravilious watercolours and go behind the scenes, exploring places, investigating mysteries, telling stories and introducing characters that are relevant to a particular picture.

The aim is to paint a portrait of the artist in words and pictures, and if you've enjoyed any of the books in the 'Ravilious in Pictures' series I think you'll find the talk entertaining and thought-provoking.

I'm planning to take 'Eric Ravilious: A Life in Pictures' to more venues, and will be sending out a brochure in due course. In the meantime, if you'd like to book the talk for a venue or arts group, please get in touch via the Comments, our Facebook page or Twitter.

Rav at the Fry, and Betjeman's 'Essex'

It was wonderful to read the other day that the Fry Gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex, has bought two watercolours by Eric Ravilious, namely  'Caravans' (1936) and 'Geraniums and Carnations' (1938).

The former is a personal favourite, and you might like to read the post here and comments here for a bit of background info. There's also an essay about the painting in 'Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs'.

I think the Fry is being very astute in building up its Ravilious collection. His reputation has grown considerably since Alan Powers curated the 2003 retrospective at the Imperial War Museum, but with interest in interwar British art and culture increasing steadily you can expect to hear a lot more about the Boy over the next few years. Towner Gallery in Eastbourne has an impressive hoard of Ravs but are yet to devote a permanent exhibition space to him.

Betjeman waits for a train

So perhaps the artist's chosen home will become an important centre for his work. I'm currently editing the text for the third volume in the 'Ravilious in Pictures' trilogy, which will be launched in conjunction with the Fry's 'Ravilious in Essex' show (starts 24 April). The book focuses on watercolours painted in Essex, plus the odd one from Suffolk, and, through them, explores the artist's life in the north-west of the county.

As he did in the Sussex Downs, Ravilious found extraordinary subjects in everyday Essex. He had an eye for the archaic and the picturesque, from flour mills to steam engines; the world he conjured resembles the Edwardian 'Essex' John Betjeman found in a picture book and wrote about:

“The vagrant visitor erstwhile,”
My colour-plate book says to me,
“Could wend by hedgerow-side and stile,
From Benfleet down to Leigh-on-Sea.”

And as I turn the colour-plates
Edwardian Essex opens wide,
Mirrored in ponds and seen through gates,
Sweet uneventful countryside.

Like streams the little by-roads run
Through oats and barley round a hill
To where blue willows catch the sun
By some white weather-boarded mill.

We travel to the coast and back to the region close to London, then to the county Ravilious knew:

The deepest Essex few explore
Where steepest thatch is sunk in flowers
And out of elm and sycamore
Rise flinty fifteenth-century towers.

I see the little branch line go
By white farms roofed in red and brown,
The old Great Eastern winding slow
To some forgotten country town.

St James St, Castle Hedingham - note blue plaque marking Bank House

I can't believe that Betjeman and Ravilious never met, although I don't recall Rav mentioning an encounter in his letters. Both men were fascinated by the peculiarities of place but, whereas Betjeman's 'Collected Poems' includes an index of places, Ravilious generally leaves us to work out his locations for ourselves. Happily we've established where most of his Essex watercolours were painted, and identified a number of people shown in the paintings too. Better still, almost all of the paintings will be on show at the Fry, so you'll be able to see them for yourself...