Preview: Eric Ravilious Scrapbooks

Eric Ravilious was an English designer, wood-engraver and illustrator born in July 1903. Growing up in East Sussex, he attended Eastbourne School of Art and then went on to study at the Royal College of Art. Here, he was taught under Paul Nash and his contemporaries included Edward Burra, Henry Moore, Enid Marx and Edward Bawden, who he became close friends with. During his working life he worked on a number of commissions and projects including painting murals for the refreshment room of the Morley Working Men's College in Lambeth, designing for Curwen Press and the Golden Cockerel Press and as an official war artist during Wold War II. He died in September 1942, when he went on an air-sea rescue mission and the plane disappeared.

'To Eric Ravilious'. This unique print is a hand-coloured proof of Backyard, No. 58 signed by Edward Bawden, 1937. © Edward Bawden Estate

 

A unique hand-coloured proof of the frontispiece for Consequences, 1932. Courtesy Fry Gallery, Saffron Walden 

 

On 3 September we will be publishing our new book Eric Ravilious Scrapbookswhich is a companion to authors Peyton Skipwith and Brian Webb's previous book Edward Bawden ScrapbooksIt is the first book to present the preparatory works and visual musings of Eric Ravilious. Ravilious took his scrapbooks very seriously; they were part of the tools of his trade and were used to preserve source material as well as his own work, with a particular emphasis on engraving and design. Peyton and Brian provide an instructive commentary, bringing together over 400 images taken from the artist’s 6 scrapbooks. It is a book which provides a fascinating record of the febrile imagination of one of Britain’s best-loved artists.

 

Eric Ravilious Scrapbooks by Peyton Skipwith and Brian Webb

£40, publishing 3 September 2018

Buy your copy here

 

Proof of an uncleared wood engraving for the dust jacket of Evelyn Waugh's Rossetti. Courtesy Fry Gallery, Saffron Walden

 

The Jacket for Osbert Sitwell's Winters of Content. Courtesy Fry Gallery, Saffron Walden