Ravilious Pilot Boat up for auction!

Eric Ravilious, Pilot Boat, 1939

Having spent some time in a private collection in the United States, Pilot Boat is back in the UK and up for auction at Sotheby's. I'm not sure I've ever seen this watercolour in person so I'm looking forward to visiting on Sunday, when I join Frances Christie and Simon Martin for a panel discussion about Place in Modern British Art (see previous post for details).

A few years ago I wrote the following to accompany the illustration of Pilot Boat in Ravilious in Pictures: A Travelling Artist. As usual Tim Mainstone and I spent a long time pondering which works to include in the book - a process you certainly wouldn't describe as painful - eventually picking this one as an atmospheric depiction of a French Channel port on the eve of war. In many instances we can revisit the sites of Ravilious watercolours and find them unchanged, but not in this case...

If Ravilious painted an interior scene on a painting trip you can be sure that the weather made working outdoors impossible. Le Havre was so cold he could only work outside for short periods, so it was as well that he had picked a hotel in such a good location, just 100 yards from the Quai George V. He was first captivated by the sleek lines and yellow masts of a steam yacht belonging to the Rothschild family - ‘the most elegant boat I ever saw’ - but, as he reported, ‘there are splendid boats wherever you go, and striped and red buoys and a special green water, a grassy green’. 

Ordinary people were fascinated to see an artist at work but, with the French newspapers dominated by discussion of the imminent conflict, Ravilious was treated with suspicion by officials who perhaps took him for a spy. ‘A gendarme questioned me closely,’ he reported on one occasion, ‘but retired beaten by my Pigeon French.’ Within a year Ravilious would be questioned far more aggressively by armed British servicemen as he drew port scenes in his capacity of war artist.

For the people of Le Havre the anticipated Nazi invasion was swift. On June 13 1940, as thousands of Allied troops evacuated by sea, German forces entered the city, where they remained in occupation for the next four years. During this time the garrison turned France’s second largest port into a massive fortress, and this spelled disaster for the city when Allied forces landed in Normandy in June 1944. Beginning on 5th September RAF bombers and naval guns blasted the city, reducing the centre to rubble and filling the waterways with wrecks. The port Edward Wadsworth had known for 30 years, and which he described in correspondence with Ravilious as ‘a real gold mine of matter’, was destroyed.

The return of peace brought to Le Havre the renowned architect and town planner Auguste Perret, who set about building a new city over the ruins of the old, using modern materials with panache in a 20-year project of unparalleled ambition. Indeed, it has been recognised as such by UNESCO, which in 2005 designated the rebuilt port a World Heritage Site. As a reminder of the old port we have this painting, almost a winter version of Seurat’s luminous harbour scenes, with a similar spaciousness and even the same mooring posts. In the low sunlight the clean lines of the pilot boat stand out against a background that seems almost on the point of melting away, with ghostly figures dimly perceptible on the far side of the water the only sign of life. 

A fine marine study, the painting is also filled with foreboding; ‘I shall be surprised,’ he wrote on returning home, ‘If there isn’t a war by the middle of May and drawing and all other sensible things fade into the background, though Tooth’s assure me their business will carry on as usual.’

This is an extract from Ravilious in Pictures: A Travelling Artist (Mainstone Press). 

Pilot Boat is Lot 12 in Sotheby's auction of Modern British & Irish Art, which will be held on 23 November. You can view the lots between 18-23 Nov. 

I'll be talking about Place in Modern British Art with Frances Christie and Simon Martin at 1pm on Sunday 20 Nov.

David Remfry: Watercolour - New Book and Exhibition!

Over his long and successful career David Remfry MBE RA RWS has achieved a mastery of watercolour that few have matched. Unusually for the medium, he works on a large scale and often focuses on people, exploring the dance hall and the nightclub in breathtaking images that are at once beautiful and edgy.

This book is the first full-length monograph devoted to the artist's watercolours. Its author, James Russell, is well known for his writing on 20th-century British artists. Russell brings his scholarship, humour and fascination for people and their lives to his study of Remfry's career, tracing the evolution of a remarkable talent, looking in depth at the most significant works and placing Remfry in the context of both the British watercolour tradition and international contemporary painting. This is at once a glorious art book and an intimate portrait of city life.

Having spent 20 years living and working at the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York, Remfry has a following on both sides of the Atlantic. New Yorkers - often in party mode - feature in many of his watercolours, and his recollections of people and places add colour to the text.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with David on this book and on the accompanying exhibition, which runs until July at the Royal Watercolour Society's beautiful new gallery at Whitcomb St, London W1 (an addition to its Bankside Gallery, NB, not a replacement).

We're going to be In Conversation at the gallery at 6pm on Friday 20 May. Having spent a lot of time chatting with David over the past year I can recommend buying a ticket - he's great fun!

Info and tickets available from the Royal Watercolour Society.

 

 

Eric Ravilious: Downland Man - opens 25 Sept!!

Front cover, catalogue of Eric Ravilious: Downland Man exhibition

 

Almost a decade after Wiltshire Museum director David Dawson suggested the idea, Eric Ravilious: Downland Man is set to open at said venue on 25 September. Having been forced to delay the exhibition by a year because of Covid I'm excited to be hanging the show this month, especially as there are one or two works I haven't seen for a very long time. 

The catalogue has been sent to the printers by designer Lucy Morton of Illuminati Books, who designed the 2015 Dulwich catalogue and has created another gem for this show. It will be available in the museum shop and on their website. My essay explores the artist's relationship with the chalk hills of southern England, putting his passion for the landscape in historical context. The 1920s and 1930s saw  a great upsurge of interest in the Downs and their history, encouraged by archaeological discoveries at Stonehenge, Avebury and Maiden Castle, where Mortimer Wheeler's excavations were funded by public subscription.  

Downland Man is the title of a 1926 book by philosophically-minded countryside writer HJ Massingham. It was also a title mooted by publisher Noel Carrington for the Puffin Picture Book of chalk figures and other monuments that Ravilious planned to create; the dummy for this book was won at auction by David Dawson in 2012 (on behalf of the museum). It is from the acquisition of this humble but emotionally-charged object that the exhibition grew.

Of course Ravilious had a personal relationship with the chalk hills that began with his boyhood move from London to Eastbourne, and was still going strong when he explored coastal defences at Dover the year before he died in 1942. It was, in his interpretation, a human landscape, scarred and furrowed, and lived-in.

Eric Ravilious: Downland Man opens on 25 September 2021 at the Wiltshire Museum, Devizes. Please book via the website before you go.

I'm giving a lecture on 5 October for the Friends of the South Downs exploring the themes of the exhibition with a particular focus on the region of the national park, entitled Eric Ravilious and the South Downs. It will be via Zoom and booking is open now on the Friends' website.

Mackerel Sky: a Ravilious Rediscovered

 

Eric Ravilious, Mackerel Sky, 1938, private collection

This radiant watercolour was for many years thought to be missing, when it was in fact hanging quietly in a collector’s home. Like many of his contemporaries Ravilious was intrigued by ‘nautical style’, as John Piper put it, and often turned his gaze to lighthouses, boats and bathing machines. Here he contrasts the familiar shapes of fishing vessels with softly undulating mud. Hawsers and stays snake in and out of the picture, framing a distant wreck. Is this a reminder of mortality, or simply an interesting object that caught his eye?  

Mackerel Sky will be on show for the first time since 1939 at Hastings Contemporary, May 27 to Oct 30 2021, as part of my wide-ranging exhibition Seaside Modern: Art and Life on the Beach. 

A Brighter February with Eric Ravilious!

Greetings! With everything being so grim at the moment I thought I would put together a short series of lectures on Eric Ravilious. These will take the form of three live webinars, which will then be available as recordings to ticket holders who can't make the actual event. 

I gave my first lecture on Ravilious in 2008 to coincide with the publication of  The Story of High Street (Mainstone Press). Since then I have written the four books in the Ravilious in Pictures trilogy (yes, really), curated the 2015 Ravilious exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery and lectured on this fascinating artist to audiences across the country. I love the fact that his watercolours and designs are both enjoyable and serious, light-hearted yet powerful, dream-like but rooted in reality.

 

Eric Ravilious, Waterwheel, watercolour, 1934

First up, on February 9, is Eric Ravilious: Art and Life - a colourful introduction to the life and work of the celebrated artist and designer:

Eric Ravilious was only 39 when he died on active service as a war artist in 1942, yet he had already achieved amazing things. A brilliant wood engraver and designer, he is best known today for his haunting watercolours in which lighthouses, white horses, empty rooms and downland paths become marvels. This entertaining illustrated talk illuminates the life and work of a playful, enigmatic artist. 

Eric Ravilious, Letter Maker from 'High Street', lithograph, 1938

On February 16 we turn our attention to Eric Ravilious: Design - a lively survey of a scinitillating career, exploring wood engravings, book illustrations and designs for Wedgwood:

During his short life Eric Ravilious (1903-42) was acknowledged as a brilliant wood engraver, lithographer and creator of ceramic designs for Wedgwood. This lecture follows the trajectory of a sparkling career, offering insights into his influences and technique while celebrating his greatest achievements. Look out for familiar favourites, from the wood engraving used on the cover of ‘Wisden’ to the lithographs featured in ‘High Street’, his 1938 book of shops, and the Alphabet design Ravilious created for Wedgwood.

 

Eric Ravilious, Newt Pond, watercolour, 1932

The third and last lecture on February 23 focuses on Eric Ravilious: Watercolour - exploring the work of an increasingly popular artist, taking a closer look at familiar favourites and discovering hidden treasures:

Over the past decade Eric Ravilious (1903-42) has become recognised as one of the finest artists of his generation, yet he remains an elusive figure who made little if any public comment on his work. Based on years of research, this lecture explores the artists's achievements in depth, looking closely at some famous favourites and revealing hidden treasures. Whether you're a die-hard fan or have recently discovered Ravilious, there's plenty to enjoy.

 

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)

Watercolour at Tate Britain: Highlights

I wasn't sure what to expect from Tate Britain's current exhibition, 'Watercolour'. Reviews were mixed, as was the feedback garnered by the museum from visitors. But though the show has some flaws, it also has quite dazzling highlights.

John Dunstall: 'A Pollard Oak near West Hampnett Place, Chichester', c 1660

In the first room visitors are treated to John Dunstall's tiny but intensely animated drawing of a pollard oak, which is balanced by a giant parish map on which can be seen sometimes unfinished sketches of people and creatures. Critics have complained that the maps and the equally gorgeous illuminated books do not really count as watercolours, but I'm not sure it matters.

The curators of the show have evidently decided to broaden its scope and appeal as far as possible. Yes, you can argue that this policy results in a lack of focus - a lack of art historical narrative - but most visitors to art galleries are not art historians. What we ordinary punters want is something wonderful, or moving, or even disturbing, to remove us for a while from the humdrum of everyday life.

Mark Catesby: 'A blue grosbeak 
(Passerina caerulea) and sweet bay 
(Magnolia virginiana)', c.1728-9

The botanical and natural history paintings in the next room fascinated me. As a terrible draughtsman who can barely write a legible shopping list I was struck by the precision of drawings that were designed to act as scientific record rather than work of art. I was particularly interested to discover a drawing by Mark Catesby, one of whose ancestors had been involved in the Gunpowder Plot. Catesby was raised in Castle Hedingham, Essex, almost 300 years before Eric Ravilious moved there, and it rather appealed to me that their work should appear almost side by side in this extraordinary retrospective of British art.

In fact you'll find the sole Rav on offer - 'The Vale of the White Horse' (1939) in the next room, surrounded by other landscapes including Edward Burra's lovely 'Valley and River, Northumberland' (1972). If I'm tempted to carp about missed opportunities it's perhaps here, because the curators ought to have given us rather more to enjoy. The Ravilious is excellent, but why not include another piece by way of a contrast - the vibrant 'Lifeboat' of 1938, perhaps?

 The Vale of the White Horse (1939), conjured entirely out of cross-hatchings, strokes, dabs and striations of faint colour, frail contour against pale line, with the white page breathing airily in between, is almost nothing, a see-through dream. But it is uniquely strange, starting in reality and ending in its own radiant elsewhere. Laura Cumming, The Observer

Eric Ravilious: 'The Vale of the White Horse' (1939)  

Ravilious would no doubt have been pleased to see his painting in the same room as Francis Towne's 'The Source of the Aveiron' (1781), a watercolour that inspired him, but again we have to wonder why such an influential painter was given so little space. Ditto John Sell Cotman and... well, everyone will have their own list.

Still, if you're going to have one painting by an artist at least make it a good one, and while Cotman's painting of Norwich market isn't quite up there with the work he did in Yorkshire it is a wonderful, strangely modern piece. The same applies to Turner, whose painting 'The Blue Rigi' (1841-2) has to represent him pretty much solo. Perhaps the curators felt we'd all seen quite enough Turners...

Francis Towne: The Source of the Aveiron (1828)

I did enjoy seeing all the watercolour sets and so forth, particularly Paul Nash's sombre kit - fitting for a man who painted in the trenches of Flanders and a good introduction to the room devoted to war art. This mini-exhibition had some peculiar gaps (Ardizzone for one) but - and I think this is more important - did provide some thought-provoking images. The juxtaposition of Paul Nash's darkly exuberant 'Wire' (1918-19) and the frank, intimate watercolours of wounded men was particularly effective.

Samuel Palmer: 'A Hilly Scene', c1828

The remaining sections of the exhibition were marred slightly by the scale of the room, which is much larger than the previous ones. It was hard to focus on a small painting like 'A Hilly Scene' (1828), Samuel Palmer's pastoral treat, and all but impossible to concentrate on the modern work, which seemed (in memory) to involve large expanses of white paper with not much on it.

Again, I don't blame the curators for trying. These days museums and galleries have to get as many people as possible through the turnstiles, and if that means including some famous names then so be it (although you'd think that David Hockney would have lured in a few punters, especially since he curated an exhibition of Turner watercolours at the same museum in 2007...). Better a couple of dubious choices than no show at all.

Patrick Heron: 'January 9:1983:II'

And besides, if you look at what's there, rather than what isn't, you'll be in for a treat. Incidentally, if you're visiting the shop at the entrance to the exhibition, do look out for 'Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs', and 'The War Paintings'...

Coming soon: NOT the Tate Britain Watercolour Show...