Ravilious & Co: The Pattern of Friendship - Hardcover

Friend, Andy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 050023955X ISBN 13: 9780500239551

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2017

Synopsis

In recent years Eric Ravilious has become recognized as one of the most important British artists of the 20th century, whose watercolours and wood engravings capture an essential sense of place and the spirit of mid-century England. What is less appreciated is that he did not work in isolation, but within a much wider network of artists, friends and lovers influenced by Paul Nash s teaching at the Royal College of Art Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Enid Marx, Tirzah Garwood, Percy Horton, Peggy Angus and Helen Binyon among them. The Ravilious group bridged the gap between fine art and design, and the gentle, locally rooted but spritely character of their work came to be seen as the epitome of contemporary British values. Seventy-five years after Ravilious s untimely death, Andy Friend tells the story of this group of artists from their student days through to the Second World War. Ravilious & Co. explores how they influenced each other and how a shared experience animated their work, revealing the significance in this pattern of friendship of women artists, whose place within the history of British art has often been neglected. Generously illustrated and drawing on extensive research, and a wealth of newly discovered material, Ravilious & Co. is an enthralling narrative of creative achievement, joy and tragedy.

About this title

Review

'Ravilious has been the subject of major exhibitions and monographs and it might seem that there is little more to say about this beguiling figure. But Andy Friend attempts something difficult and useful a multiple biography of the network of artists in Ravilious's circle ... [a] moving book' --Literary Review

'Ravilious & Co adds much new detail and factual fine-tuning to our picture of national, in contrast to international, modern art in interwar Britain' --Daily Telegraph

'Friend excels ... in the glimpses he offers of the lives behind the art' The Times

A fascinating slice of English artistic and social history--New York Review of Books

Engagingly written...beautifully produced --The Art Newspaper

The book is magnificent. I can't recommend it enough...Andy Friend seems to have opened new vistas on the lives, loves and connections of this mesmerizing and migrant artist- right up to his last fatal flight off Iceland in 1942--Robert MacFarlane

Beautifully written--Sussex Life

Gorgeously illustrated--The Lady

Beautifully illustrated-- The Times

Generously illustrated, beautifully written..a remarkable testimony to the making of art and friendship-- The Artist

Valuable and absorbing--The Yorkshire Post

A deft example of that tricky genre, the group biography--Martin Gayford's Books of the Year The Spectator

Handsomely illustrated--The Tablet

One of the best biographies this year..a lovely account--The Guardian Books of the Year Round Up

Shrewdly and sympathetically charts the wide-ranging influence of this group and their personal and professional relationships --Sunday Times Books of the Year

About the Author

Andy Friend is a Ravilious expert and co-curator of Ravilious & Co. at Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne, UK.

Alan Powers is Professor of Architecture and Cultural History at the University of Greenwich in London. An art historian, practicing artist, and author, he has written a number of books on Eric Ravilious.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 050023955X
• ISBN 13: 9780500239551
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336