Truth is often stranger than fiction, isn't it? Head to the newly opened venue of Charleston in Lewes for Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story , an exhibition that relates a piece of art history that, you have to say, would make a good film. And here are the two principal characters: Dorothy, on the left, a talented graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art , and her fellow student, friend, lover, partner and collaborator Patricia, perhaps not quite so talented, but both passionate about art. The photograph seems to tell you a lot. Dorothy looks a little bit awkward and ill at ease, slightly frumpy, androgynous even. Patricia appears confident, glamorous, exuberant, perhaps a little.... possessive? But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. We need to establish the plot.... The rather retiring Hepworth and the outgoing, gregarious Preece became inseparable as students, and they planned to set up a studio together after graduation. In 1922, Preece took exam
You know Eric Ravilious, right? Those very English watercolour landscapes, understated and charming, that grace the covers of a surprising number of books. He's been the subject of a couple of exhibitions over the past few years, including one at Dulwich in 2015.
But what about his wife? Bet you don't know a lot, if anything, about her. Her name was Tirzah Garwood, and as Mr and Mrs Ravilious, a quite splendid little show at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden in Essex, demonstrates, she turns out to have been a really talented artist in her own right, making wonderfully observed and often very witty drawings and wood engravings.
Tirzah was a student of Eric at the Eastbourne School of Art in the late 1920s, and they married in 1930. Along with Edward Bawden and his wife Charlotte, the Raviliouses moved to Great Bardfield in Essex, not that far from Saffron Walden, in the early 1930s.
And here she is, depicted by Eric in this very domestic scene from 1933, shelling peas into a bowl in the garden at Great Bardfield as Charlotte sits reading.
Sadly, Eric was killed in Iceland during World War II while serving as a war artist, while Tirzah died of cancer in the early 1950s. This show at the Fry Gallery, which has quite a lot of Eric's pictures in its collection, is the first attempt to show their work side by side and the influence they had on each other.
The Train Journey is a lovely example of one of Tirzah's engravings, though its content seems rather more serious than most. A woman sits silently and apparently somewhat anxiously in a third-class railway carriage, her gloved hands tightly clasped on her purse. Her eyes are averted from the two men opposite her in the compartment who are asleep, or pretending to be. It leaves you wondering what's the story behind it.
Ten years later, Eric also painted a third-class carriage, but an empty one this time, in Train Landscape (a picture sadly not on show at the Fry), with the Westbury White Horse in the background. In fact, the painting is a collage of two different pictures: Tirzah cut and pasted the best bits together to form a whole.
Now, a lot of Tirzah's work is in private hands, and for copyright reasons we're unfortunately unable to reproduce most of the images from this exhibition. But The Crocodile from a collection of six engravings entitled The Relations gives a flavour of her style.
Her work comes across as very precise and laden with detail and incident. It reminds you in some ways of the drawings and paintings in previous centuries of Hogarth, Gillray and Rowlandson in its observation of people. though with a gentler touch. It's the sort of humour you might find in a cartoon. She really makes you smile.
Also in this set is The Aunt, in a scene from a dog show that probably has a whole novel in it. The textures of the dogs' coats, the clothes and those shiny leather boots are wonderful.
These are fun, but there are even more enjoyable things to see in pictures that we can't show you in this post. From the same series comes The Husband, in which a mustachioed, trench-coated man with a trilby stands in the middle of the vegetable plot, three enormous marrows under his arms, like a private detective (Raymond Chandler's Philip Marrow, perhaps?) investigating a particularly nasty murder by the cold frame.
Some of the most memorable images are from among Garwood's earliest work on display in Saffron Walden. Six Scenes from 1926 are watercolour and ink drawings that have the character of wood engravings, each a beautifully executed vignette.
A Talkative Woman on the Tube is nagging her downcast cloth-capped husband, who sits forlornly clutching a shopping bag. A Commercial Traveller sees a brush salesman, his foot planted firmly on the doorstep thrusting his broom into the house against firm resistance, including from a woman in a spotted dress who puts her arm up to fend off the invasion. And in Street Games, a boy has just hit a cricket ball for six.... A number of ladies look slightly aghast as they follow the dangerous projectile out of shot; where will it come down? You're almost waiting for the sound of breaking glass. (And in case you're wondering, we couldn't find any of these delightful images on the web, so you'll have to go to Saffron Walden to see them!)
Eric Ravilious's early work in this show is more stylised and less down-to-earth than his future wife's, and it's noticeable how this changes as time goes on. The Attic Bedroom is another view of the Bawdens' home at Brick House by Eric, with a slight air of surrealism lent by the cacti, trunks and disparate objects that furnish the space.
This show has a fair quantity of other, relatively familiar work by Eric, including the Submarine Series of lithographs, made during his period as a war artist, and watercolours such as the rather lovely Caravans, a bucolic image despite the modern intrusion of telegraph poles.
Tirzah's output diminished after her marriage as she devoted herself to her young children, but the exhibition finishes with some of her later works, mainly in oil. There are some local scenes, which have a bit of a naive-art quality to them, as well as others like Prehistoric Encounter, with a tortoise, toad and dragonfly amid greenery lit by the moon, that seem to nod to the surreal.
We weren't very much taken by these later paintings, but Tirzah Garwood's early drawings and engravings really stand out for their sharpness and humour, and they deserve to be far better known. So get down to Saffron Walden, and spread the word. And the Fry Gallery is a historic curiosity worth visiting in its own right.
The nearest rail station is a couple of miles away at Audley End, which has twice-hourly trains from London Liverpool Street, taking an hour or a little less to get there. On a nice day, it's perfectly possible to walk to Saffron Walden if you're that way inclined, taking the Saffron Trail footpath that runs in part across the grounds of English Heritage's spectacular Jacobean Audley End House. Otherwise, a bus goes from the station to Saffron Walden once an hour or so.
Tirzah Garwood, The Crocodile, 1929, The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. Photo © The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden/Bridgeman Images
Tirzah Garwood, The Dog Show (The Aunt), 1929, The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. Photo © The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden/Bridgeman Images
Eric Ravilious, The Attic Bedroom, c. 1934, The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. Photo © The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden/Bridgeman Images
But what about his wife? Bet you don't know a lot, if anything, about her. Her name was Tirzah Garwood, and as Mr and Mrs Ravilious, a quite splendid little show at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden in Essex, demonstrates, she turns out to have been a really talented artist in her own right, making wonderfully observed and often very witty drawings and wood engravings.
Tirzah was a student of Eric at the Eastbourne School of Art in the late 1920s, and they married in 1930. Along with Edward Bawden and his wife Charlotte, the Raviliouses moved to Great Bardfield in Essex, not that far from Saffron Walden, in the early 1930s.
Sadly, Eric was killed in Iceland during World War II while serving as a war artist, while Tirzah died of cancer in the early 1950s. This show at the Fry Gallery, which has quite a lot of Eric's pictures in its collection, is the first attempt to show their work side by side and the influence they had on each other.
The Train Journey is a lovely example of one of Tirzah's engravings, though its content seems rather more serious than most. A woman sits silently and apparently somewhat anxiously in a third-class railway carriage, her gloved hands tightly clasped on her purse. Her eyes are averted from the two men opposite her in the compartment who are asleep, or pretending to be. It leaves you wondering what's the story behind it.
Ten years later, Eric also painted a third-class carriage, but an empty one this time, in Train Landscape (a picture sadly not on show at the Fry), with the Westbury White Horse in the background. In fact, the painting is a collage of two different pictures: Tirzah cut and pasted the best bits together to form a whole.
Now, a lot of Tirzah's work is in private hands, and for copyright reasons we're unfortunately unable to reproduce most of the images from this exhibition. But The Crocodile from a collection of six engravings entitled The Relations gives a flavour of her style.
These are fun, but there are even more enjoyable things to see in pictures that we can't show you in this post. From the same series comes The Husband, in which a mustachioed, trench-coated man with a trilby stands in the middle of the vegetable plot, three enormous marrows under his arms, like a private detective (Raymond Chandler's Philip Marrow, perhaps?) investigating a particularly nasty murder by the cold frame.
Some of the most memorable images are from among Garwood's earliest work on display in Saffron Walden. Six Scenes from 1926 are watercolour and ink drawings that have the character of wood engravings, each a beautifully executed vignette.
A Talkative Woman on the Tube is nagging her downcast cloth-capped husband, who sits forlornly clutching a shopping bag. A Commercial Traveller sees a brush salesman, his foot planted firmly on the doorstep thrusting his broom into the house against firm resistance, including from a woman in a spotted dress who puts her arm up to fend off the invasion. And in Street Games, a boy has just hit a cricket ball for six.... A number of ladies look slightly aghast as they follow the dangerous projectile out of shot; where will it come down? You're almost waiting for the sound of breaking glass. (And in case you're wondering, we couldn't find any of these delightful images on the web, so you'll have to go to Saffron Walden to see them!)
Eric Ravilious's early work in this show is more stylised and less down-to-earth than his future wife's, and it's noticeable how this changes as time goes on. The Attic Bedroom is another view of the Bawdens' home at Brick House by Eric, with a slight air of surrealism lent by the cacti, trunks and disparate objects that furnish the space.
Tirzah's output diminished after her marriage as she devoted herself to her young children, but the exhibition finishes with some of her later works, mainly in oil. There are some local scenes, which have a bit of a naive-art quality to them, as well as others like Prehistoric Encounter, with a tortoise, toad and dragonfly amid greenery lit by the moon, that seem to nod to the surreal.
We weren't very much taken by these later paintings, but Tirzah Garwood's early drawings and engravings really stand out for their sharpness and humour, and they deserve to be far better known. So get down to Saffron Walden, and spread the word. And the Fry Gallery is a historic curiosity worth visiting in its own right.
Practicalities
Mr and Mrs Ravilious is on at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden until October 27. The gallery is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 1400 to 1700, Saturdays from 1100 to 1700 and Sundays and bank holidays from 1415 to 1700. Entry is free. The gallery is off Castle Street, just down a footpath that leads to Bridge End Garden. (More interesting than the historic but rather underwhelming garden is Saffron Walden's parish church, the largest in Essex, which is on the other side of Castle Street.)The nearest rail station is a couple of miles away at Audley End, which has twice-hourly trains from London Liverpool Street, taking an hour or a little less to get there. On a nice day, it's perfectly possible to walk to Saffron Walden if you're that way inclined, taking the Saffron Trail footpath that runs in part across the grounds of English Heritage's spectacular Jacobean Audley End House. Otherwise, a bus goes from the station to Saffron Walden once an hour or so.
Images
Eric Ravilious, Two Women Sitting in a Garden, 1933, The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. Photo © The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden/Bridgeman ImagesTirzah Garwood, The Crocodile, 1929, The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. Photo © The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden/Bridgeman Images
Tirzah Garwood, The Dog Show (The Aunt), 1929, The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. Photo © The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden/Bridgeman Images
Eric Ravilious, The Attic Bedroom, c. 1934, The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. Photo © The Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden/Bridgeman Images
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