Background

Eric Ravilious, full named Eric William Ravilious, was born on July 22, 1903, in London, United Kingdom. He was a son of Frank Ravilious and Emily Ravilious, nee Ford.

While he was a child, the family moved to Eastbourne, Sussex where Ravilious’s parents opened an antique shop. Eric spent his childhood there.

Education

Eric Ravilious studied at the Eastbourne Grammar School. At the age of sixteen, he obtained a scholarship to Eastbourne School of Art. Two years later, other scholarship allowed him to pursue his artistic training at the Design School of the Royal College of Art.

Ravilious had studied at the institution for three years under the artist Paul Nash who encouraged the young man to exercise wood engraving. It was there where Eric got acquainted with one of his close friends, the artist Edward Bawden.

Career

Eric Ravilious received his first commissions due to his teacher Paul Nash who was impressed by his pupil’s work. So, in 1926, Ravilious made illustrations for the novel by Jonathan Cape. Afterwards, Eric Ravilious continued his collaboration with different publishing companies such as Lanston Corporation and the Golden Cockerel Press, as well as Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.

About the middle 1920s, Ravilious shared with his friend Bawden a studio the latter had opened in Great Bardfield. Two colleagues explored the Essex areas to find new topics for their paintings till 1934 when they relocated to the house at Castle Hedingham.

In 1925, Ravilious had an opportunity to travel around Italy. Three years later, he took part in the mural decoration of the refreshment room at the Morley Working Men's College in Lambeth along with Bawden and Charles Mahoney. The same time, the painter became a part-time teacher at the Eastbourne School of Art and later, in 1930, occupied the similar post at the Royal College of Art.

Other project related with murals came in 1933. This time, Ravilious worked on the frescoes at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe along with his wife. The debut solo exhibition the artist had the same year at the Zwemmer Gallery in London provided him with a huge success and popularity – the painter sold 20 of the 37 works.

By the mid-1930s, Ravilious revealed his interest in lithography. He produced his print of Newhaven Harbour for the "Contemporary Lithographs" and illustrated the book High Street by J. M. Richards with huge lithographs reflecting shop interiors of Victorian high street shops.

The next solo show of the artist was organized in 1936 again in the Zwemmer Gallery and had the similar success as the first one. At the exposition, Ravilious received a big commission from a porcelain, and luxury accessories company Wedgwood to design the series of ceramics and created the commemorative cup to celebrate the abortive coronation of Edward VIII. Till the 1950s, the artist had produced many design projects, like glass designs for Stuart Crystal (1934), graphic adverts for London Transport, furniture for Dunbar Hay, the Alphabet mug of 1937, the china sets Afternoon Tea (1938), Travel (1938), Garden Implements (1939) and the Boat Race Day cup in 1938.

The following year, Ravilious held his third solo exhibition, this time at the Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery in London. The show coincided with his appointment as the war painter by the War Artists' Advisory Committee.

While serving, the artist painted battleships (Her Majesty's Ship Ark Royal and Her Majesty's Ship Glorious), war scenes and war people in such regions as Sheerness, United Kingdom, Scotland, Norway and Iceland.

Achievements

• Eric Ravilious was a prolific artist, one of the most remarkable British watercolourists of the 20th century whose talent was recognized in his native country and abroad.
  
  So, during his career, Ravilious produced in total about four hundred illustrations and forty lithographs for both books and publishing houses. One of his mug designs from his collaboration with ceramic company Wedgwood was used for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. As a war painter, his name was included at the Chatham Naval Memorial, Kent, United Kingdom.
  
  In 1933, another British artist Michael Rothenstein portrayed Ravilious and Edward Bawden. The canvas was accepted at the National Portrait Gallery in 2012.
  
  Nowadays, the artistic heritage of Eric Ravilious can be seen in such well-known galleries and museums as the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Fry Art Gallery, The Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, The Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art, The Priseman Seabrook Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum. A lot of Ravilious can be found at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne.
  
  The 75th anniversary of the painter’s death was commemorated by the huge retrospective of his art called Ravilious & Co: The Pattern of Friendship at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne, United Kingdom.

Works

More photos

• artwork

  • May, the Long Man of Wilmington

• design

  • Submarine Engineer

  • A Dinner Plate from His ‘Travel’ Collection (Wedgwood)

  • Entire ‘Travel’ collection (Wedgwood)

  • The ‘Garden’ Series for Wedgwood

  • BBC British art Talks Pamphlet

  • The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (cover)

  • High Street. Model ships

  • Wedgwood Alphabet Cup

  • Mugs Designed for Wedgwood

  • High Street. Public house

  • A rare piece of fabric produced in 1958 from a Ravilious design

• lithography

  • High Street

• painting

  • Harlequin

  • Wet Afternoon. View of the Church of Saint Mary, Capel-y-ffin, Powys

  • Lombardy Poplars

  • Duke of Herefords Knob & Baptist Chapel at Capel-Y-Ffin

  • Royal Air Force's Hurricanes in Flight, World War II

  • Her Majesty's Ship Ark Royal in Action

  • Tea at Furlongs

  • The Attic Bedroom

  • 5th November Guy Fawke Bonfire Night Fireworks

  • Interior at Furlongs

  • Cerne Abbas Giant

  • Chalk Paths

  • Boy Bird Nesting

  • Train Going over a Bridge at Night

  • Church under a Hill

  • Firle Beacon

  • Cement Works No. 2

  • The Vale of the White Horse

  • High Street. Baker and confectioner

  • Morning on the Tarmac

  • Buscot Park, Farringdon, Oxfordshire

  • Two Cows

  • Pilot Boat at Le Havre

  • Swimmer

  • Bomb Defusing Equipment

  • Working Controls while Submerged

  • Farm House and Field

  • Midnight Sun

  • Working Submarine Controls Submerged

  • Halstead Road in Snow

  • Firing a 9.2 Gun

  • Hull’s Mill, near Castle Hedingham

  • The Westbury Horse

  • Fire Engineer

  • Caravans

  • No. 29 Bus

  • Steamship Brighton Leaving Newhaven

  • Windmill

  • Runway Perspective

  • The Wilmington Giant

  • The Diver, Her Majesty's Ship Dolphin Submarine, World War II

  • The H

  • Walrus Aircraft on the Slipway

  • Sussex Landscape

  • Eastdean Road Sussex

  • Royal Naval Air Service Sick Bay, Dundee

  • View from Brick House, Great Bardfield

  • Leaving Scapa Flow

  • Different Aspects of Submarines

  • The Water Wheel

  • Steam Train Rounding a Bend

  • Submarines in Dry Dock

  • Spitfires at Sawbridgeworth, Herts 1942

  • Tennis (triptych, right wing)

  • Train Landscape

  • Her Majesty's Ship Ark Royal in Action

  • Shelling by Night

  • Lifeboat at Aldeburgh

  • Anchor and Boats, Rye

  • Commander of a submarine looking through a periscope

  • Tennis (triptych, left wing)

  • Men Operating Submarine Controls

  • Lysanders in the Snow

  • The Causeway, Wiltshire Downs

  • Strawberry Bed

  • The Boarding House

  • Geraniums and Carnations

  • Two Women in a Garden

  • New Year’s Snow

  • Downs in Winter

  • Wiltshire Landscape

  • Bathing machines. Aldeburgh

  • River Thames

  • Fresian Bull

  • Testing Davis apparatus

  • Road by an airfield

  • Her Majesty's Ship Glorious in the Arctic

  • Coastal Defences

  • Ward Room 1

  • Newhaven Harbour

  • Tiger Moth

  • Paddle Steamer Britannie – Bristol Quay

  • Belle Tout Lighthouse Beachy Head

  • The Teleprinter Room

  • Furlongs

  • De-icing Aircraft

  • Edward Bawden Working in His Studio

  • Dangerous Work at Low Tide

  • Tennis (triptych, centre panel)

Politics

Eric Ravilious was somehow involved in the campaign of the Artists' International Association led to support the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. So, the artist pledged his canvases to consolidate money for left representatives. However, the political activity of the painter was relative – he never expressed it directly through his canvases which were rather unofficial, depicting the everyday life of the whole country.

Views

Quotations: "I like definite shapes."

Membership

• Society of Wood Engravers , United Kingdom

  1925

Personality

Eric Ravilious was a very cheerful person according to his classmate from the Royal College Douglas Percy Bliss.

Quotes from others about the person

• "I never saw him depressed. Even when he fell in love – and that was frequently – he was never submerged by disappointment. Cheerfulness kept creeping in." Douglas Percy Bliss, a painter, classmate from the Royal College of Art
  
  "Happiness is a quality that is difficult to convey through design, but Ravilious consistently managed to generate it." Alan Powers, a teacher, researcher and writer
  
  "An easy artist to like." David Gentleman, an artist

Interests

• dancing, tennis, pub games

• Artists

  Thomas Bewick, John Sell Cotman, Francis Towne

Connections

Eric Ravilious married Eileen Lucy "Tirzah" Garwood in 1930 who studied at the Eastbourne School of Art where the artist gave art lessons. She was also an artist. The family produced three children – two boys named John and James who chose the career of a photographer, and a daughter Anne who edited the writings on her notable parents.

Father:

Frank Ravilious

Mother:

Emily Ravilious

Spouse:

Eileen Lucy Gardwood

Son:

John Ravilious

Son:

James Ravilious

Daughter:

Anne Ullmann

Friend:

Edward Bawden

teacher:

Paul Nash

References

• Eric Ravilious: Memoir of an Artist
  1983
• The England of Eric Ravilious
  2006
• Eric Ravilious: Imagined Realities
  2012
• Eric Ravilious: Artist and Designer
  2013
• Ravilious
  2015
• Eric Ravilious: Design
  2015
• Eric Ravilious Masterpieces of Art
  2015