Dulwich Picture Gallery lines up major Eric Ravilious retrospective for summer 2015
This article originally appeared on Culture24.
A major Eric Ravilious watercolour retrospective is the summer exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery
Eric Ravilious, Belle Tout Interior (1939). Watercolour and pencil on paper© Private CollectionRavilious will be the first show to thoroughly examine a medium which he used to capture the atmosphere of peacetime and wartime England and preserve the fleeting passage of time.
Curated by James Russell, whose books and lectures on Ravilious have established him as a leading expert on the artist, the show will take a chronological approach, pausing to look at the objects and themes which fascinated an artist who enjoyed success as a designer and engraver but whose passion was watercolour.
Russell’s most recent curatorial outing was a co-curation at Towner Eastbourne in summer 2014 exploring the life and work of Ravilious’ friend and fellow artist Peggy Angus, whose summer cottage, Furlongs, on the Sussex Downs features heavily in the Ravilious story.
Promising an “assessment of Ravilious’ achievement as an artist of supreme skill”, the gallery says the show will focus on the watercolour output between 1925 and ended in 1942 – effectively the span of Ravilious' career, which was cut short when the air sea rescue mission he had accompanied as an official war artist failed to return to its base in Iceland.
Click below to launch a gallery of paintings from the forthcoming exhibition:
Eric Ravilious, Dangerous Work at Low Tide , 1940, Watercolour and pencil on paper © Image courtesy of Ministry of Defence, Crown Copyright 2015
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a painting of sailors walking towards a bomb across the sandflats of a beach as a group of sailors watch from a safe distance
Eric Ravilious, November 5th , 1933, Watercolour and pencil on paper. © Private Collection
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a painting of people enjoying fireworks in their back gardens and across a small town as seen from an elevated position.
Eric Ravilious, Bomb Diffusing Equipment, c.1940, Watercolour and pencil on paper. © Private Collection
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a painting of a series of tools laid out on a bench
Eric Ravilious, Caravans , 1936, Watercolour and pencil on paper. © The Fry Art Gallery. Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund in 2010
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A painting of two caravans perched on a hilltop
Geraniums And Carnations in a Greenhouse by Eric Ravillious, 1935
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a painting of the interior of a greenhouse
Eric Ravilious, Hurricane in Flight (circa 1942) © Watercolour and pencil on paper, Private Collection
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a painting of two flying fighter planes high above the earth seen from the cockpit of a biplane
Eric Ravilious, Interior at Furlongs (1939). Watercolour and pencil on paper © Private Collection
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a painting of an interior of a cottage with the door ajar
Eric Ravilious, Tea at Furlongs (1939). Watercolour and pencil on paper © The Fry Art Gallery
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a painting of a table outside with umbrella and fields beyond
Eric Ravilious, The Waterwheel (1938). Watercolour and pencil on paper © Brecknock Museum, with support from the Art Fund; the V&A Purchase Fund ; Brecknock Art Trust; Brec knock Society; Usk Valley Trust
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a painting of a small waterwheel in a brook during wintertime with swans
Eric Ravilious, The Westbury Horse (1939). Watercolour and pencil on paper © Private Collection
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a painting of a hillside with a white horse figure on it and a steam train in the distance
Eric Ravilious, Wet Afternoon (1938). Watercolour and pencil on paper © Private Collection
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a painting of a line figure walking down a country lane during a rainstorm
Describing Ravilious as “an artist who captured England between the wars like no other”, the gallery's Director, Ian AC Dejardin, said the watercolours conjured up a "nostalgic yet incisive" view of England through peace and war.
Famous works such as Train Landscape (1939) and Tea at Furlongs (1939) will accompany rarely seen works from private collections to provide a fresh look at Ravilious’ creative output and make the case for how Ravilious integrated rather than abandoned his instincts and ideas when appointed as a war artist in 1940.
The exhibition also recalls Ravilious’ 1939 show, at the prestigious Tooth and Sons’ Gallery in London, which was greeted warmly by critics, who described his work as ‘almost untranslatable’ and ‘magic, almost mystic’. Two-thirds of the 27 paintings exhibited will be displayed.
Loans have been secured from a number of lenders including Towner, The Fry Art Gallery, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Imperial War Museum, Tate, Leeds Museums and Galleries, Royal College of Art, The British Council and multiple private lenders.
- Ravilious is at Dulwich Picture Gallery from April 1 - August 31 2015.
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