Eric Ravilious
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Eric Ravilious (b. 1903, Acton, London - 1942) was an English painter, book illustrator, and wood engraver.
Ravilious attended the Royal College of Art, where he studied under Paul Nash. He began his working life as a muralist, first coming to notice as an artist in 1924. He went on to become one of the best-known artists of the 1930s. He was also the leading light of wood-engraving in England at that time, and undertook ceramic designs for Wedgwood. For much of his life, he lived in Eastbourne, where he is commemorated by a Blue Plaque on the wall of his childhood home.
Ravilious was killed while serving as a war artist in the Royal Air Force on a rescue mission off the coast of Iceland. Neglected for many years after the war, a major retrospective of Eric Ravilious' work was staged by The Imperial War Museum in 2004.
Original prints by Ravilious are difficult to find and only original lithographs from the book High Street printed by Curwen Press in 1938 are occasionally found today; this wonderful series comprises 24 views of shops which were to be found on High Streets of the time; none of these original lithographs were ever signed.
The collected edition of all the Ravilious woodcuts 1972, also printed by Curwen Press, contains photolitho reproductions of the original prints. The carved blocks were mainly destroyed and the few that remained were considered to be too fragile to print from.
His son, James Ravilious, became a noted English photographer.
[edit] Further reading
- Alan Powers, Oliver Green. Away We Go! Advertising London's Transport: Eric Ravilious & Edward Bawden (2006)
- Alan Powers. Eric Ravilious: Imagined Realities (2004)
- Freda Constable. The England of Eric Ravilious (2003)
- Richard Morphet. Eric Ravilious in Context (2002)
- Submarine dream: Lithographs and letters (1996)
- Robert Harling. Ravilious and Wedgwood: The Complete Wedgwood Designs of Eric Ravilious (1995)
- Helen Binyon. Eric Ravilious. Memoir of an Artist; The Lutterworth Press (1995)
[edit] External links
The 24 prints from High Street are displayed here.
