Ravilious in Pictures: A Country Life

Ravilious in Pictures: A Country Life is the third in a series of books celebrating the life and work of Eric Ravilious (1903‐42). In 1932 Ravilious and his wife Tirzah moved to the Essex village of Great Bardfield, and for the remaining decade of his life they lived within an easy cycle ride of the village, first in Castle Hedingham and then at Ironbridge Farm, near Shalford. It was in north-west Essex that his children were born, and it was here that he found the inspiration for a series of watercolours that together form a remarkable portrait of country life in the 1930s.

Ravilious sought out both the beautiful and the unusual, and the twenty-two watercolours in this volume provide a unique record of village life that includes everything from the splendid Georgian architecture of the Castle Hedingham vicarage to abandoned steam engines and other relics of the past. Each picture is accompanied by an essay which explores the places depicted and introduces characters and stories hidden behind the scenes. 

Ravilious in Pictures: A Country Life shows a fine English artist at home, among friends and family, enjoying the pleasures and enduring the trials of village life in the 1930s. The book is a companion volume to Sussex and the Downs (2009) and The War Paintings (2010); taken together, the three books form an unusual and compelling biography of Ravilious, drawing on his correspondence, original research and other sources to create an intimate portrait of the artist and his world,

Ravilious in Pictures: A Country Life will be published by The Mainstone Press in April 2011.

Reviews for Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs

‘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)

‘The next volume from Mainstone Press is eagerly awaited.’ (Sarah Drury, The Art Book, Aug 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)

Reviews for Ravilious in Pictures: The War Paintings

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

‘A lovely and melancholy new volume’ (Ian Collins, Eastern Daily Press, Dec 2010)

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

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...