ERIC RAVILIOUS: CHANGING VIEWS

Eric Ravilious, Tea at Furlongs, 1939, watercolour

Hello!

To mark the tenth anniversary of my 2015 exhibition Ravilious at Dulwich Picture Gallery I’m giving a celebratory double lecture online, 2 x 50 minutes with an interval.

As well as introducing the life and work of Eric Ravilious to people who are not that familiar with the artist, the longer format will allow time to introduce some less well-known work and to explore some favourite watercolours, wood engravings and ceramic designs in more depth.

Since curating the Dulwich show I’ve put on two further Ravilious exhibitions as well as the current Dulwich exhibition, Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious. I’ve also spent a couple of years working on the catalogue raisonné of Ravilious watercolours, a project I hope to pick up again this year.

The upshot of all this is that my view of this enigmatic artist has changed (and continues to change), and I’m looking forward to sharing some of my research into his influences, techniques, etc, with you later in the month.

Researching Ravilious can be frustrating, given the lack of cold, hard facts about him and his work, but it’s fun to follow a hunch and see where it leads...

If you'd like to come along to Eric Ravilious: Changing Views, tickets are available via Eventbrite. 

FOUR STARS FOR TIRZAH GARWOOD!

 

Tirzah Garwood, untitled embroidery (woman watering)

It's always gratifying to get some press for an exhibition, but the reviews of Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious have been particularly enjoyable. Writers seem to have enjoyed coming face to face with an artist they haven't really seen before, and to have been affected by Garwood's peculiar magic as I was and as visitors to the gallery seem to be. We're not making claims about greatness or saying art should be this and not that... we've simply put up works by an artist the world (we feel) will be better for knowing, and said, 'Come and have a look.' I admire Jenny Scott and staff at Dulwich for doing that, and Garwood's family too. Links to articles below - some unfortunately behind a paywall.

'Joyous, curious, inventive and droll,' Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious reviewed by Laura Cumming in The Observer

'How the Forgotten Art of Tirzah Garwood finally came to Light' Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious preview by Rachel Cooke for The Observer

'Varied and visionary', Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious reviewed by Florence Hallett in The i

'In from the Cold,' Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious preview by Florence Hallett for The Art Newspaper

'So much more than "Mrs Eric Ravilious"', Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious preview by Laura Freeman in The Times

'The mother of invention,' Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious reviewed by Daisy Dawnay for World of Interiors 

Tirzah Garwood: Lost and Found, review by Sarah Hyde for Airmail

The Magic of Tirzah Garwood, review by Mathew Lyons for Engleberg Ideas

Framing Art History's Most Famous Friendships - and Fall-outs, Ruth Millington for New York Observer

Tirzah Garwood's English Satires, review by Michael Podger for The New Statesman

'Tirzah Garwood: unveiling a forgotten visionary', my introduction for ArtUK

Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious is at Dulwich Picture Gallery until May 2025. Have a look at the Bloomberg Connects app for some extras!

TIRZAH GARWOOD LECTURE NEWS!

Tirzah Garwood, Erskine Returning at Dawn, 1950, oil on canvas

I'm thrilled that my exhibition Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious will be opening at Dulwich Picture Gallery on 19 November. It's been a fascinating journey since I suggested the show to them three or so years ago, not least because so little study has been made of Garwood's work before. Her life is quite well-documented, thanks to her autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield (written 1942 and after, but only published recently) and to Margy Kinmonth's film Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War. But few outside a close circle of family, friends and fans know her wood engravings, marbled papers, model house constructions and paintings at all well.

So it's been exciting to bring together eighty-plus of these works (along with ten by her first husband, Eric Ravilious) and arrange them in what I hope is a helpful way. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and in 2018 did bring together Garwood and Ravilious in my exhibition In Relation: Nine Couples who Transformed Modern British Art at RWA Bristol. That experience persuaded me to include a few pertinent wood engravings and watercolours by Ravilious in the first half of the Garwood show; the artists' contrasting approaches to similar motifs are fascinating, and the comparison sheds valuable light on Garwood's creative development.

You'll have an opportunity to get to know Tirzah Garwood a bit better before the exhibition because I'm giving an online lecture on 1 October, which will be recorded and made available to ticket holders for the rest of the month. If you follow the link you should find all the info you need.

 

NEWS! NEWS! NEWS! TIRZAH GARWOOD AT DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY

Tirzah Garwood, Hornet and Wild Rose, 1950 (Towner)

Another lengthy silence and another valid excuse... I've been hard at work putting together the first major museum exhibition devoted to the art of Tirzah Garwood (1908-51) since the memorial exhibition shortly after her death. 

Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious will open at Dulwich Picture Gallery in November, and I am absolutely delighted to be bringing the work of this remarkable artist to the audience she deserves. I was going to say 'unknown' artist but in fact Garwood is familiar to quite a number of people, thanks to her autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield and to Margy Kinmonth's film Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War. 

Some of the wood engravings she made in her early twenties are also well-known, having been reproduced here and there, but those were a small - if brilliant - part of her artistic achievement. In the 1930s and 1940s she made exquisite decorative papers using a marbling technique that was all her own and went on, in the few years she had between the end of World War Two and her death from breast cancer, to create a series of compelling house constructions or dioramas and a group of hauntingly beautiful oil paintings.

The last twenty of these Garwood painted in her last year, when she knew she was dying and yet was somehow able to paint works that are at once radiant and uncanny. They are not at all like her first husband's watercolours, but she did share with him an 'innocent eye' that was a lot less innocent than it seemed, and an ability to get to the very essence of things.

Roll on November!

Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious opens at Dulwich Picture Gallery in November, almost ten years after my exhibition Ravilious opened there. I'll be advertising an online lecture to introduce the show soon...

Tirzah Garwood & Peggy Angus in the ODNB

Tirzah Garwood by Duffy Ayers, 1944

Earlier this year I wrote entries for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography on two remarkable women: Peggy Angus and Tirzah Garwood. The former was born in Chile to ex-patriot Scottish parents, then raised in Muswell Hill, London. She won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in the early 1920s and there met Eric Ravilious, who in turn met Tirzah when, after graduating from the Royal College, he taught her at the Eastbourne School of Art. When Eric and Tirzah were married in 1930 the two women became friends; though very different in many ways, they shared both artistic talent and a belief in plain speaking.

It was fascinating to try and condense the lives of these two immensely creative, characterful people into a few hundred words, especially given that their lives were so closely intertwined. Inevitably an ODNB entry tends to focus on the facts but I hope some hint of character comes through in the newly published essays. For anyone who's interest is piqued there is good news.

In Peggy's case, I would recommend Carolyn Trant's beautiful limited edition biography 'Art for Life', which is based heavily on interviews with Peggy - though after following the link you may want to seek it out in a library! Alternatively you could get hold of the book I wrote to accompany the 2014 exhibition at Towner - 'Peggy Angus: Designer, Teacher, Painter'. I was going to say it's a cheaper option, but people seem to be offering copies at the most terrifying prices. Must be out of print...

With Tirzah the options are rather better, as Persephone Books is about to publish her autobiography 'Long Live Great Bardfield' in a trade edition. This hilarious, insightful and sometimes painfully honest book was edited by Eric and Tirzah's daughter Anne Ullmann, and was originally published as a typically gorgeous limited edition by The Fleece Press. Illustrated with Tirzah's witty wood engravings, the new paperback is a must-read for anyone who has even a passing interest in life and culture in interwar England.

What else? Oh yes. By some quirk of timing, Tirzah is the 60,000th person to have their life recorded in the ODNB. I'm not sure if that makes Peggy the 59,999th, or the 60,001st.

Help the Fry Art Gallery buy its Building!

Eric Ravilious, Two Women in a Garden, 1932

The Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden is one of my favourite art museums, being small, mildly eccentric and full of work by artists I like. Visiting from Bristol poses a logistical challenge or two, but it's always worth the effort. I was there for the launch of the 'Ravilious in Essex' show a few years ago, and what an entertaining day that turned out to be. On those occasions you can be sure to meet some interesting people and hear a tale or two.

Anyway, the Fry has been going sicne 1985 and now its custodians have the opportunity to buy the lease - correction, freehold! - of the building, which was built in the mid-19th century to house the art collection of Quaker businessman Francis Gibson - it still seems like a private gallery, but one to which we're all invited. Success in its fundraising mission would mean that the Fry's valuable role as first port of call for students and admirers of the Great Bardfield artists is assured for posterity.

In case you're wondering who the aforementioned artists are, they include Eric and Tirzah Ravilious (or Tirzah Garwood), Edward Bawden, John Aldridge, Kenneth Rowntree and the Cheeses, Bernard and daughter Chloe. For a full list, why not have a look at the Fry's website? You will also notice, tucked away at the bottom of the Home Page - how typical of the gallery to ask for money so discreetly - a mydonate button.

And you have until October 25th to visit the Fry's 30th anniversary exhibition, which features work by numerous artists with a Bardfield connection, from Rav and Bawden to Grayson Perry. Have a look and see what Martin Gayford thought of the show...

Eric Ravilious & Tirzah Garwood: One Couple, Two Exhibitions

Tirzah and Eric Ravilious painting a mural at the Midland Hotel, Morecambe

Artist couples are fascinating. Like the rest of us they have a public life and a private life, only the hidden world of an artist couple or family is often revealed - if only in tantalising glimpses - in correspondence, diaries and in artworks themselves. In some cases the relationship has proved inspirational to both halves of the couple, but often one artist's work tends to pushed into the background as the career of the other takes off.

Still going strong in 2012

The history of 20th century British art is rich in artist couples. There are those who, like Gilbert and George, have pooled their identities to form an artistic double act and others, among them Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan, who succeeded in maintaining parallel careers. This was true too of Ben and Winifred Nicholson, a couple whose artistic relationship long outlived their marriage; they were still busily writing to each other about painting decades after splitting up, although you wouldn't know it to judge from the books about Ben.

I was at the Central Library in Bristol the other day - it has a wonderful art history collection - and on asking about Ben Nicholson in the Reference section was presented with a trolleyful of books, each one progressively bigger and glossier and less comprehensible. His first wife merited a solitary book. 

Personally, I think Winifred's best work is beautiful. I also think the importance of intimate relationships is underplayed in conventional art history, which tends to consider artists in terms of similar artists and via the art historical theories of the day. An artist is only 'important' if they fit within the narrative - but you don't need me to tell you that...

Winifred Nicholson, Bonnie Scotland, 1951 (Tullie House)

Eric Ravilious was virtually invisible ten years ago and is now a central figure in the alternative story of 20th century British art that Alexandra Harris has championed in her 2010 book 'Romantic Moderns'. The exhibition of his watercolours which opens at the RWA in Bristol next week will be the third show in consecutive years, each one given little attention in the national press but attracting unprecedented numbers of visitors nonetheless.

Tirzah Garwood, The Train Journey, 1929-30

His work also features in a second exhibition opening this month, at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden, but he is not the main subject. 'Long Live Great Bardfield!' is a show about Rav's wife, Tirzah, and the creative force behind it is Anne Ullmann, their daughter and the author/editor of several stunning books about them. Over the past few years she's been editing her mother's autobiography, 'Long Live Great Bardfield, & Love to You All', which is about to be published by the Fleece Press.

Eric Ravilious, Train Landscape, 1939 (Aberdeen Art Gallery)

I've written before about Tirzah, who learned wood engraving from Eric and as Tirzah Garwood became an outstanding printmaker in her own right. She gave this career up to concentrate on raising her children, but didn't give up art per se. Throughout her married life she made marbled papers, which at different times she sold through London boutiques, and she also assisted Eric, publicly when he was commissioned to paint murals at the Midland Hotel, Morecambe, and privately in ways we will probably never fully appreciate. Her contribution to the painting 'Train Landscape' (1939) is one of my favourite instances.

Tirzah Garwood, Orchid Hunters in Brazil, 1950 - there's a story to this...

After Eric's death she took up oil painting and also made a series of unusual relief pictures of shops. This work is rarely shown, except at the Fry, and the appearance of two examples on the Antiques Road Show last year caused some consternation to their resident expert. Now we have the opportunity to look at Tirzah's work properly and also to read what she thought about married life with Eric. Famous for her fiery letters, I suspect that she had a thing or two to say...

'Eric Ravilious: Going Modern / Being British' is at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, from Saturday March 10th.

'Long Live Great Bardfield!' opens at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden, on March 31st.

Wood engravings by Eric Ravilious are included in an exhibition of work from the archive of the Society of Wood Engravers, showing until March 23rd at Manchester Metropolitan University.

'Ravilious in Pictures: A Travelling Artist' will be launched at the RWA on March 10th, 12-2pm

Favourite Blogs: from Post-War London to Knitting with Ravilious

One of the pleasures of modern life is the discovery of an interesting blog. It's a cross between making a new friend and finding a quirky shop or a cafe, or a garden hidden away in a corner of the city. I'm very bad at keeping lists and find that I rarely use them anyway, following the path of a particular moment's inclination from one website to the next, but here are a few favourites.

Tirzah Garwood, The Dog Show, 1929

For a fascinating exploration of fine art printmaking you can't beat Adventures in the Print Trade, author  and print dealer Neil Philip's long-running blog. Neil is as knowledgeable as he is enthusiastic, and as a writer he achieves the difficult feat of combining technical know-how with a breezy style. His 2010 post on Tirzah Garwood (Eric Ravilious's wife) is typically thorough and serves as a perfect introduction to the work of a talented wood engraver who gave up a promising career to raise her children.


Another long-standing blog is All Things Considered, which is maintained by Angie and Simon Lewin of St Jude's Gallery in Norfolk. Like Neil, they are driven by a desire to share their enthusiasm, in their case for British culture past and present. Yes, there's a promotional angle too, but a great deal of the material posted on the site seems to be put there simply for the pleasure of sharing it. I'm particularly enjoying the ongoing series of posts devoted to the 'About Britain' series published in 1951 for the Festival of Britain.

It's great that people take the time to post images and information that it would otherwise be impossible to find - I've tried to do the same with the material I've gathered on Eric Ravilious and the Sussex Downs but don't manage to post half as much I'd like to...

Of course there are many other extraordinary art-related blogs out there. Another favourite is Art Inconnu, which features artists both dead and living who are either unknown or underappreciated. Occasionally a reader will protest that a certain artist is neither of the two, but this is rather missing the point of what this kind of blog is about. A blog is subjective, reflecting the passions and tastes not of museums, newspapers or corporations but of individuals. I enjoyed this post on William Victor Higgins, one of the pioneers of the Taos art colony. I'm planning to post some material on the artists of Santa Fe and Taos. In fact it's criminal that I haven't already, since I lived there for five years and visit regularly...

WV Higgins, New Mexico Skies, 1943

Some blogs you visit from time to time, knowing that there will always be something new and startling on offer. How to be a Retronaut is one such, providing regular injections of thought-provoking photographic weirdness. Colour photos from the days before colour photos, carefully chosen bits of archive material, and snippets of old film give one a frisson of what life would be like as a time traveller - interesting, isn't it, how much we associate historical periods with the medium we're using to seeing them in? I like these pictures of London in 1957.

Retronaut: London 1957

Then there are the quirky, personal blogs created and maintained by people who spend their time doing interesting things and enjoy telling the rest of us what they've been up to. Dru Marland has been doing this for ages, and when you visit her blog Upside Down in Cloud you may find her doing urgent Morris Traveller maintenance, painting hares or exploring some glorious, forgotten corner of the country. The Quince Tree, meanwhile, is the creation of a devoted Ravilious fan (among other things), who recently came up with the strange and wonderful idea of knitting in Rav's palette.

The Quince Tree: an unusual knitting pattern...

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)

Tirzah Ravilious and the Women of Bardfield

Tirzah Garwood, The Wife, 1929

 People who have delved a bit into the world of Eric Ravilious may know that his wife Tirzah, nee Garwood, not only tweaked one or two of his best-known paintings but was also a fine artist in her own right, and an excellent printmaker.

The range and energy of her work is impressive, particularly given that she abandoned printmaking after marrying Eric and devoted herself with great dedication to her children. Despite being widowed and fighting cancer she produced (and sold) marbled papers, paintings and relief works in paper.

She shared - and no doubt fuelled - Eric's fascination for toys and dollhouses, creating haunting interiors. She also shared the fate of many female artists, that of being overlooked by people fascinated by her famous husband's work.


The imminent publication of her diaries should shift the balance a little, since she was an outspoken, observant and energetic writer. So too will the exhibition currently showing at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden, which features:

wood engravings, box constructions and paintings by Tirzah Ravilious, oils paintings and pots by Charlotte Bawden, and remarkable marbled papers by both artists, often working together at the kitchen table.

Sheila Robinson invented the cardboard cut and there are a number of these together with an unpublished book Seven Dancing Princesses. Lucy, the first wife of John Aldridge, was a rag rug maker and one of her pieces is on show together with a portrait of her at her work. Marianne Straub had a distinguished career in woven textiles and there are examples on display. Many people will have sat on her work while riding on London Transport's buses or Underground trains.

Ravilious in Pictures: Excerpt

Eric Ravilious: Train Landscape (1939, Aberdeen Art Gallery)

In the previous painting we saw a train from the viewpoint of the Westbury Horse; here the perspective is reversed, with the chalk figure framed by the window of a railway compartment. We take on the role of passenger, alone in the corner seat, looking up to see the horse appear on the hillside, as it does when a train approaches Westbury station.

In this instance, though, the eye is quickly drawn back into the empty compartment, to the huge number on the door. Yellow, shaded black, this massive numeral tells us our place. We’re in third class, and the seat cushions, though exquisitely patterned with diamonds and stars, are starting to sag. These and the leather window strap, stretched out of shape by countless hands, tell us that this compartment is real and much used. Keep looking and more details appear, from the tab handles of the roller blinds to the patch of pale sunlight on the woodwork in the top left of the painting. The diagonally striped draught strips on either side of the door are both functional and decorative.

Is it significant that the compartment is third class? Ravilious worked easily alongside the printers at the Curwen Press and occasionally drew industrial workers and farm labourers, but he was equally comfortable among naval officers, or dining at the Café Royal. Rather than being an homage to the working man, the splendid ‘3’ probably reflects his own economical travelling habits.

Until his appointment as a war artist nobody minded how Ravilious travelled, but in November 1940 the War Artists Advisory Committee found itself with a dilemma. With some artists claiming for first class travel and others for third the WAAC stepped in; Ravilious, with a salary of £325 for six months’ work, should travel third. As an officer holding the King’s Commission, however, Captain Ravilious was not permitted to travel third class. ‘I think,’ wrote a committee member, ‘We must let him go First.’

Ravilious travelled constantly by train, and it is fitting that he added to the canon of railway art this inimitable work. Where Turner’s ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’ brilliantly conveys the violent drama of a transport revolution and Augustus Egg’s ‘Travelling Companions’ the intimate experience of travel, Ravilious focuses on the magical space of the railway compartment itself, a man-made environment in which every detail is designed.

But this story has a twist. Restorers working on ‘Train Landscape’ recently discovered that the Westbury Horse had been glued over something else, and closer examination revealed the Wilmington Giant hidden behind it. It seems that Ravilious made two paintings, both aboard trains on the Eastbourne to Hastings line, but was not happy with either. So his wife Tirzah took the best parts of each and skilfully cut and pasted them together.

This is an excerpt from 'Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs', published by the Mainstone Press. The book features twenty-two of the artist's finest watercolours. There's an order form here.