Ravillious at the fry

R av i lious at th e fry

A GUIDE TO HIS WORKS IN

th e Fry A rt Ga llery

R AV I L I O U S AT T H E F RY A PIC TOR I A L C OM M E N TA RY W I T H A N E SSAY BY F R A NCES SPA L DI NG A ND R EM I N ISCENCES

BY CH R ISTOPH E R SA N DF OR D & T I R Z A H R AV I L IOUS

T H E F RY A RT GA L L E RY, C A ST L E ST R E ET, SA F F RON WA L DE N, E SSEX

E R I C R AV I L I O U S F R A NC E S SPA L DI NG Since the Fry Art Gallery opened, in 1987, in what had formerly been a Victorian private gallery, its collection has focused on artists associated with North West Essex.

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mong these is Eric Ravilious. He sits at the core of this collection for various reasons. One is his association with Great Bardfield, which for a period became a centre of artistic productivity in Essex; another, his effectiveness as a decorative designer, especially when working as a wood-engraver; and a third, his outstanding achievement as a watercolourist, at a time when this medium had become tired and conventional, badly in need of the crisp, fresh approach which Ravilious brought to it.

Ravilious’s untimely death in 1942, at the age of thirtynine, added poignancy to his reputation. But it is in more recent times that the critical acclaim surrounding his art has escalated. This development has been helped by critics and art historians, but it has been chiefly driven by the growth

of public interest. The appeal of his art has given rise to the Eric Ravilious Appreciation Group (ERAG) and to the attendance figures which took the Imperial War Museum by surprise in 2003, when it mounted a generous exhibition to celebrate the centenary of his birth. Never before had the full range of Ravilious’s output been so extensively investigated or his artistic personality so clearly expressed.

Whatever the subject of his art, be it a couple of tin mugs, teapot, pencil and open notebook on a makeshift table in an Observer Corps hut (as well as the Wellington boots lined up underneath), or a great sweep of empty downland, he brought to the task in hand both receptivity and detachment, a love of the particular as well as an instinctive and shaping awareness of what to leave out. His interiors, for example, may look straightforward, but they are much considered. ‘It is the artist’s constructive activity,’ Meyer

Opposite, Caravans, watercolour, 1936.

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Schapiro once wrote, ‘his power of impressing a work with artist’s work?’ A reply, in Ravilious’s case, can point to the fact feeling and the qualities of thought that gives humanity to that he is well represented in public art collections in some art: and this humanity may be realized with an unlimited twenty-eight towns or cities throughout Britain, as well as range of themes or elements of form.’ The humanity in a a few public galleries abroad. Two places in particular – the Ravilious can be discerned in Imperial War Museum, the seemingly slight things; in, for Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, instance, the light falling across – have a strong commitment a neat bedspread or in the details to his art, but most Ravilious supplied about the structure of a enthusiasts will make their way simple wooden bridge. first of all to the Fry Art Gallery

Light repeatedly plays a at Saffron Walden. It is here we key role in his art. It is usually find a strong representation of cool, even and subdued, but it his watercolours (some on longoften infiltrates and stabilises term loan); a large collection the entire scene. Of course it also of the ceramics he produced in makes us aware of transience, association with Wedgwood; which may be one reason why an books he illustrated with undercurrent of melancholy runs superb wood-engravings for through much of his work. The the Nonesuch Press, the Golden exhibition at the Imperial War Cockerel Press as well as items Museum in 2003 may have done commissioned by the Curwen much to make his work more Press, together with some of the Persephone, 1936, used for the Coronation, 1953. familiar, but it also suggested actual blocks he cut. There are that commentators on Ravilious have so far only begun to hint also lithographs by him, including a complete set of the prints at the complexity of his personality and in his art. registering the life and work inside a submarine.

A question often voiced by those who become interested

It is typical of Ravilious that he should take such in the work of a particular artist is ‘Where can I see this interest in a professional environment so far removed from 4

R AV I L I O U S R E M E M B E R E D CH R ISTOPH E R SA N DF OR D The publisher Christopher Sandford of the Golden Cockerel Press remembered Eric Ravilious for a BBC ‘In Memoriam’ programme on 20th January 1948.

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or Eric Ravilious, his own products – as painter, book some respects rather like that of H. G. Wells. His father illustrator, engraver, lithographer, and designer – are had originally been trained as a coach builder: and I have perhaps the best memorial. He was born in 1903 and heard Eric attribute to this fact his own ability as a craftsman. He had no particular wish to become an artist, died in 1942, while flying from Iceland as an official war and it was only the offer of a scholarship to the Eastbourne artist. In this short life of thirty-nine years he attempted Art School that decided him. and achieved much that was new and valuable. As an

In 1925 a travelling scholarship from the Royal instructor, he passed on the secrets of his inspiration and College of Art provided him with the opportunity to his craft. As an individual, he has left, in the hearts of those visit Italy, but his native genius derived the whole of its who knew him, the impression of someone fundamentally good, combining kindness, gentleness, and cheerfulness with inspiration at home, and he returned as soon as possible.

In 1926 he was at work on his first serious commission courage self-discipline and strength of purpose.

– a set of engravings to illustrate a novel called Desert. As

His early childhood was spent in Acton, where his works of art, revealing the arrival of a new personality in father kept a draper’s shop. His upbringing was thus in our midst, these pictures were arresting: but he had not yet, at that date, begun to adapt his craft to the limitations Opposite, Chanticleer (detail), 1930, from a Golden Cockerel of the machine in reproduction.

Press prospectus, printed on bright yellow paper.

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The book Desert gave Ravilious the all-important embarking on great enterprises! In October, 1930, for start which every young artist craves. By December of instance, Ravilious was ‘much looking forward’ to the year in which it was published, he had begun that beginning his engravings for Twelfth Night – ‘this close association with the Golden magnum opus of mine’ as he called Cockerel Press which was to keep it. In the February following, his him happily employed, chiefly on publisher was writing, ‘I hope very book-illustration, for the next six much the volume is going to set a years. Of the five books illustrated new standard, for us as well as for by him for the Golden Cockerel, Mr everybody else.’ You and I, looking Robert Harling has written: ‘They back, can see the great depression represent a major memorial to his hanging over them. By June they unusual qualities and skill as an were beginning to realize that engraver for books.’ In parentheses something was wrong. Ravilious I should say that Mr Harling’s wrote light-heartedly, ‘I am very Notes on the Wood-Engravings of sorry the play does not seem to be Eric Ravilious will be a treasured selling as well as it might: there is possession of all lovers of Ravilious’s something called “depression” at art. It contains reproductions of work just now.’ some ninety of his engravings,

Ravilious’s first work for the and these provide an admirable Golden Cockerel was to illustrate perspective of the whole of his Suckling’s A Ballad upon a engraved work.

Wedding, published in 1927, with

The first letters in my file, Flower Spirit, engraving from Desert, 1926. seven delicate and delightful little from 1926 to 1931, between engravings. In them we see the Ravilious and Robert Gibbings, my predecessor at the excited countryman, who tells his listener of all the fine Golden Cockerel Press, make wistful reading now. With goings-on at the wedding. We see the foppish guests, the what brave confidence the artist and his publisher were bride ‘so round, so plump’, the loving couple at the feast.

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Headpieces, wood engravings,

originally printed in red and black.

The Kynoch Press Note Book, 1933.

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This book was followed in the same year by The life and his work, always young and enchanted.

Twelve Moneths of Nicholas Breton. The twenty-four

Until the outbreak of the recent war, he continued at engravings in this book show Ravilious assuming a new, intervals to produce engravings for books, displaying what and, for the artist, important is to my mind an almost unique role – that of recording life as it talent for decoration, perhaps was lived in his generation. Here, equalled once only in our history, we see the first flowering of his

by Grinling Gibbons. careful documentation of life, as

His approach to his craft was he observed it, which later was to experimental, and it is wrong make him one of the best of our to claim that Ravilious was a brilliant group of war artists. traditional artist, or to suggest

In 1929 he started work on that he was at cross-purposes engravings for Aaron Smith’s The with the considerable number Atrocities of the Pirates. Just as of experimental artists of the children love gruesome tales of new school, such as Hughesfrightful adventures, so Ravilious, Stanton, John Nash, Bawden and the kindest and most gentle of Freedman. On the contrary, each, men, delighted playfully in tales in his own way, was working to of mystery and horror. I remember, discover the possibilities of the some years later, his pressing me various media, such as engraving, to publish a new edition of The painting, black and white drawing, Murder at the Red Barn. Of The and autolithography. They were Atrocities of the Pirates he wrote: Block from the Kynoch Press Note Book. vigorously opposed to all those ‘It is a really good pirate story. It traditionalists who used their would be good, I think, to illustrate the more desperate media as reproductive or copying processes. They deplored and bloody incidents’ and he asked that the book should a servile copying of nature and the reproduction in one have ‘a really bright vermilion cover’. He remained, in his medium of a work of art in another.

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Autumn Fruits, wood engraving from publicity material for The Cornhill magazine, published by John Murray 1936.

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‘A YO U N G C U R AT E ’ T I R Z A H R AV I L IOUS Following Christopher Sandford’s appreciation, ‘In Memoriam’, Tirzah Ravilious broadcast a more personal recollection of her husband.

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hen I first met him, Eric was a part-time teacher at the Eastbourne School of Art, where I was a student. He was tall and thin with a small head that jutted out at the back; his eyes were large and hazel in colouring. He had a diffident manner, and I remember thinking that his manner was rather like that of a young curate. He did of course outgrow this diffidence, but he was always very sensitive, and this awareness of his own vulnerability made him careful not to hurt the feelings of other people.

Because of his smallish nose, and his gaiety and enthusiasm, he looked younger than his age and it sometimes worried him that he wasn’t treated as a serious person.

He did at one time try to counteract this by growing a moustache; but he invariably cut into this under the froth of shaving soap and gradually it got smaller and smaller.

Apart from early commissions for wood engravings (his main craft, with which Christopher Sandford has dealt) his first large commission was the decoration of the walls of the refreshment room at Morley College with Edward Bawden. This was painted in oil, although neither of them had previous experience of the medium, and afterwards the surface was sprayed with wax.

Unfortunately this very gay and amusing painting has been destroyed by a bomb.

We were married in 1930 and lived for a few years in London. We both wanted to move to the country, and one week-end Eric bicycled with Edward Bawden into Essex and, after an abortive attempt to take Thaxted Town Hall

Opposite, Eric Ravilious, ink drawing by the artist/poet Thomas Hennell, 1930s.

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(which looked empty), they found a house in the village It wasn’t until 1939 that he felt satisfied he really had of Bardfield which we shared for week-ends and holidays. achieved something. He wasn’t at all a sentimental person, There they both started painting water colours. but was tremendously healthy in both mind and body

Although he was mainly interested and wholly lacking in snobbishness in this medium, he enjoyed doing or jealousy. He loved occasions such as other work; he felt stimulated by the Coronation or Guy Fawkes night for variety. He liked the limitations of their fun and their unexpected beauties technical processes, and was latterly – children dancing round in a circle in experimenting in the printing of the dark, waving sparklers, or a boatvarious surface textures by lithography. load of girls in coloured dresses seen on But, as I said, his main interest was in the river bank from above like a basket watercolours. Both he and Bawden were, of flowers. He was particularly fond of I think, responsible for a change in the early cars and steam engines, and iron fashion of this rather neglected medium. bedsteads in hedges, and twisted bicycles Their training as designers brought a in village ponds, and it was this fondness liveliness and originality to their work, for antique machinery that attracted and they chose subjects of a documentary him to Walrus amphibian planes; interest. In pursuit of these they their primitive appearance and their competed with one another in working slowness were both endearing to him. under conditions of various hardships, in He had a great affection for the work of ghastly weather, or with the sun bang in Francis Towne, the nineteenth century their eyes. They painted several pictures Neptune, watercolour, 1928. watercolour painter, and he was planning very early in the morning from the roof before the war to go to Greenland to of their house, and on occasion they had to come down nearly paint snow and mountain landscape, the subject of Towne’s overpowered by the smoke of kippers cooking for breakfast. best work. It was this wish to paint similar scenes in his war

Eric showed on an average only one out of every four pictures which took him to Iceland – and it was from his very or five paintings he produced, tearing up the failures. first flight that failed to return.

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Wedgwood Persephone, 1936, above; Travel, designed in 1938 and put into production in 1953, below.

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T H E F RY A R T G A L L E RY in the Collection, from members of the public, and from the National Heritage Lottery Fund. The quality of the Collection has also benefited considerably from grants made toward purchases and from items received under the Acceptance in Lieu scheme. All assisted works are acknowledged publicly, and principal and regular support has been received from the Victoria & Albert Purchase Grant Fund, which administers an annual government grant, the Art Fund, an independent charity concerned with maintaining the country’s heritage, and the Essex Heritage Trust. Support has also been regularly given by the Tanner Trust, the Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust, Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers, and the St Jude’s Gallery. The Gallery has also enjoyed over many years the support of the Ravilious family and the professional advice, encouragement and services of Webb & Webb Design Limited.

The Gallery was refurbished and reopened in 1985 by The Fry Art Gallery Society, a registered charity (295904), which is responsible for its management. The Society acts in conjunction with the North West Essex Collection Trust, a separate registered charity in which the North West Essex Collection is vested. The Fry Art Gallery Society relies on voluntary support to maintain the building and the Collection: It arranges special exhibitions alongside the Permanent Collection and a fund raising exhibition and picture sale each November. The Society manages the Gallery through an elected committee; membership is available to those who wish to support the Gallery and members receive regular newsletters, invitations to previews and the other events arranged each year.

The Society acknowledges the support it has received over the years in donated work from artists represented

Opposite, Hovis Mill (Hull’s Mill near Sible Hedingham), wood engraving (detail), 1935.

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‘Mr Robert Gibbings presents his world famous Golden Cockerel’, 1932. © The Fry Art Gallery, 2012 Castle Street, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB10 1BD Designed by Webb & Webb Design Limited Printed by Northend Creative Print Solutions

Acknowledgements: Items illustrated have either been donated or purchased by the Fry Art Gallery Society. Grant aided purchases and loans are also acknowledged.

Page 2, Caravans, purchased with the aid of the Art Fund, the Tanner Trust and the Seymour Strang Trust, 2010; page 5, Hull’s Mill, purchased with the aid of the Art Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, 2003; page 6, The Attic Bedroom, purchased with the aid of the Heritage Lottery Fund, 1997; pages 8 and 9, Still Life with Acanthus Leaves and Two Women Sitting in a Garden are currently on loan to the Fry Art Gallery; pages 10 and 11, Submarine Series, purchased with the aid of the Art Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, 1992; page 12, Demonstrating a Machine Gun, purchased with the aid of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund, 2008; Carnation House, page 13 is currently on loan to the Fry Art Gallery; page 28, Eric Ravilious, was presented by Miss Olive Cook; page 30, Neptune, was presented by Mr. Edward Bawden; page 31, Harlequin, purchased with the aid of the Art Fund and the Essex Heritage Trust, 2005; and page 38, Hovis Mill was presented by Mr. Ron Costley. Ceramic photography on pages 34 to 37 by Alex Fox.

ISBN 978-0-9573172-1-5