Each new year brings exciting and significant new paintings, watercolours, books and other objects, which are shown in the permanent collection display. Alongside this is a series of short-term exhibitions celebrating the artists and the collection, often enhanced by work from private collectors and national institutions. We would like to involve more young people through our outreach programme, and our long-term vision is to increase the gallery space, allowing us to display more of the collection and tell more of the Bardfield story and the impact of this group of artists. What seems to have attracted artists to Great Bardfield, which is about 25 miles from Cambridge, was partly its quiet and settled way of life, in an unspectacular rural environment. The first artists to settle there – Edward and Charlotte Bawden, John Aldridge, and Eric and Tirzah Ravilious – were looking to get away from the hectic pressures of urban life, as well as finding affordable places to live which would give them space for their work, which were difficult to find in London. A memorial exhibition was held at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne in 1952. Two of her paintings are in the Towner Gallery, [8] which also has the largest collection of Ravilious' work. [9] Both also have works in the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden. Additionally, one of her prints is held by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. [10] She was painted by Ravilious, in Two Women in a Garden (1936), alongside Charlotte Bawden. [4] Bibliography [ edit ]

In 1985, the Fry Art Gallery was established in Saffron Walden with the expressed aim of highlighting the paintings, prints, wallpapers, books, fabrics and ceramics made by the Great Bardfield art community between 1930 and 1970. Many of the artists have had exhibitions at the Fry Art Gallery and elsewhere. Colin Gleadell (15 September 2009). "Art Sales: Essex boys' moment in the sun". Telegraph . Retrieved 8 February 2014. It was during this period that Bawden produced the tiles for the London Underground that were exhibited at the International Building Trades Exhibition at Olympia in April 1928. We regularly change the exhibition of works from our Collection to ensure that the greatest possible number of items is available to visitors. The number of items in our Collection means that only a selection can be shown in the Gallery at any one time, but all our artworks may be accessed by appointment. In 1949, Bawden provided illustrations for the book London is London– A Selection of Prose and Verse by D. M. Low. Bawden completed a series of eleven murals for the First Class lounge of the P&O liner Oronsay, which was launched in 1951. The theme was the English pub and Bawden depicted traditional pub names, such as the Rose & Crown, in purely visual form in his design. [13] For the Festival of Britain in 1951 he created a mural, English Country Life, that was displayed in the entrance of The Lion and the Unicorn Pavilion. [14] [15]

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The 1930 murals by Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious and Charles Mahoney for Morley College" (PDF). Vle.morleycollege.ac.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 February 2014 . Retrieved 8 February 2014.

Bawden lived in Great Bardfield, Essex from the 1930s to 1970. While living at Bardfield he was an important member of the Great Bardfield Artists. This group of local artists were diverse in style but shared a love for figurative art, making the group distinct from the better known St Ives art community in Cornwall, who, after the war, were chiefly dominated by abstractionists. [12]

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Upon leaving school in 1919, he attended Cambridge School of Art full-time from 1919 to 1921. There he became interested in calligraphy and in the work of Aubrey Beardsley, Richard Doyle, William Morris and other Victorians. [2] This was followed in 1922 by a scholarship to the Royal College of Art School of Design in London, where he took a diploma in illustration until 1925. Here he met his fellow student and future collaborator Eric Ravilious; the pair were described by their teacher Paul Nash as "an extraordinary outbreak of talent". I have sung in Wolfson Choir for some 16 years, during which time I have helped to organise choir tours to Italy, Greece and France. As a member of the Arts Committee I hope I can bring some of my experience in curating exhibitions and researching with the Fry Art Gallery to the development of future art and design displays in college, as well as personally benefitting from the depth of experience brought to the committee by its other members. About the Collection In the management of the gallery we now have a flatter structure of teams, which has meant more people putting more time and effort into the life of the collection. Each year brings more acquisitions of high quality and interest, the special exhibitions increase national awareness of the artists in our collection and we now loan work to more institutions. And what does the future hold for the Fry Art Gallery? Two artist’s colonies, in particular, have seen a recent resurgence of interest in their work, namely at Great Bardfield, including the work of Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden and the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, established by Cedric Morris at Benton End near Hadleigh in Suffolk. Their sharp-lined rolling landscapes and buildings, and their mildly caricatured paintings of human beings (notably Ravilious’s portrait of Bawden at work) have become emblematic of the years before the Second World War. They have that in common with Brian Cook, whose magical drawings of English landscapes and buildings adorned the covers of the topographical books published by his uncle, Harry Batsford, from 1932. This was a golden age of graphic art – and its heart was in Bardfield.

For many years Eric Ravilious was best known for his design work (commissioned by Wedgwood and London Transport), book illustrations, wood-engravings, and lithographs. Two years ago, an exhibition of his watercolour paintings at the Dulwich Picture Gallery revealed another side to his talents. Now, with the show ‘Ravilious and Co.: The Pattern of Friendship’ at the Towner Art Gallery (until 17 September), curator Andy Friend encourages us to see him firmly at the centre of a network of artists that included Peggy Angus, Edward Bawden, Helen Binyon, Barnett Freedman, Tirzah Garwood, Percy Horton, and Enid Marx. The book Friend has written to accompany the exhibition, beautifully produced by Thames & Hudson and including 239 illustrations, is the first comprehensive group biography of those loosely referred to as the ‘Great Bardfield Artists’ – after the Essex Village where many of them lived from the 1930s onwards. The Combination Room is a light and airy space which shows off work to good advantage, and the Gallery enables works to be seen by everyone coming in and out of Hall. The main downside is that exhibitions can only be fully open to the public at weekends, because these spaces are in regular use by the College during the week. However, this hasn’t prevented a good number of people from making the trip out to Wolfson at weekends and enjoying the show. You're a Senior Member at Wolfson - how do you stay involved with College life and what do you like most about being part of the College community? Today, with improved access and ubiquitous car use, Bardfield no longer presents such an affordable proposition, and the artistic community largely came to an end with the deaths of John Aldridge in 1983 and Edward Bawden in 1989. Edward Bawden, CBE RA (10 March 1903 – 21 November 1989) was an English painter, illustrator and graphic artist, known for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture. Bawden taught at the Royal College of Art, where he had been a student, worked as a commercial artist and served as a war artist in World War II. He was a fine watercolour painter but worked in many different media. He illustrated several books and painted murals in both the 1930s and 1960s. [1] He was admired by Edward Gorey, David Gentleman and other graphic artists, and his work and career is often associated with that of his contemporary Eric Ravilious. After making a series of studies of the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq, Bawden was recalled to London. He departed Cairo aboard the SS Stratheden but transferred to the RMS Laconia in Durban on 27 August 1942. After the Laconia was torpedoed and sunk, on 12 September 1942, he spent five days in an open lifeboat before being rescued by a French ship, the Gloire. [8] He was held prisoner in a Vichy internment camp in Casablanca for two months before the camp was liberated by American troops. [9] From Casablanca he sailed to Norfolk, Virginia. [8] When he eventually returned to Britain, Bawden did portrait work at the Military Hospital in Colchester and in Scotland, with Polish forces training there. He returned to Iraq in September 1943, as a Ministry of Information artist to work in Baghdad and Kurdistan, before he joined the Middle East Anti-Locust Unit on its trek to Jeddah. From Jeddah, he returned to the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq, before entering Iran to portray supply shipments to the Soviet Union.Finally, the small but perfectly formed Great Bardfield Cottage Museum, on the Dunmow Road, is open at weekends from Easter to the end of September and there you can learn even more about the history of the village.

Long Live Great Bardfield & Love to You All: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood 1908–43. Simon Lawrence-Fleece Press. ISBN 978-0948375958. Arthur Lindsay Sadler, Professor of Oriental Studies (1922–48) at the University of Sydney, spent his retirement in the village Garwood left Ironbridge in March 1944, and moved with her children to Boydells Farm, near Wethersfield, Essex. She began painting in oils and resumed her career as an artist. Garwood met the Anglo-Irish radio producer Henry Swanzy in 1944, and they were married in March 1946. They lived in Hampstead. [2] Eric Ravilious’s work in watercolour, wood engraving and ceramic design has become deservedly well-known in recent years, and there have been major exhibitions of his work, notably in the Dulwich Picture Gallery and currently at The Arc, in Winchester. The North West Essex Collection holds many fine examples of his output, and a selection is usually on display at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden. a b James Russell (2011). Ravilious in Pictures: A Country Life. The Mainstone Press (Norwich). ISBN 978-0955277764.In many ways, displaying artwork in College is a delight. There is an excellent secure system for hanging works, which makes them easy to put in place, and the display cases show off objects to great advantage. This is helped by the skilled assistance given by Alan and Joshua from the college staff team who now have considerable experience in installing exhibitions and can make things run very smoothly. By 1930, Bawden was working one day a week for the Curwen Press, as was Ravilious and their former tutor, Nash, producing illustrations for leading companies at the time such as London Transport, Westminster Bank, Twinings, Poole Potteries, Shell-Mex & BP, the Folio Society, Chatto & Windus and Penguin Books. In the early 1930s he was discovered by the Stuart Advertising Agency, owned by H. Stuart Menzies and Marcus Brumwell. Around this time Bawden produced some of his most humorous and innovative work for Fortnum & Mason and Imperial Airways. He also worked for The Listener.