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Edward Bawden CBE, RA(Click on Picture for a larger image)1903 - 1989
Though of Cornish ancestry he was born in Braintree in 1903, and was perhaps more firmly rooted in Essex than any other artist represented in the North West Essex Collection.
Edward Bawden can be seen as the key artist in the Bardfield/North West Essex group. His long career spanned most of the twentieth century, and comfortably straddled boundaries and borders between the fine and applied arts, boundaries which are seen as so immovable today. Even before his appointment as an Official War Artist in 1940, Bawden had established a reputation as a designer, illustrator and painter. As well as these areas his output over the years include murals, posters, designs for wallpaper, ceramics, lithographic prints and watercolours. The same professionalism and attention to the rigours of design would be applied whether to an advertisement for petrol or a painting for the Royal Academy.
Edward Bawden attended the Friends’ School in Saffron Walden. At the age of eleven he strained his heart and was excused participation in sports. This may have allowed him to devote more time to drawing, and his portraits and caricatures attracted the attention of his tutors who arranged for him to spend a day a week at the Cambridge School of Art. The school, now part of Anglia Ruskin University, had been founded to comply with the Ruskinian philosophies of improving design for industry, and encouraging amateur aspirations. Bawden fitted perfectly. Before long, he had gained entry to the Royal College of Art. Here he was taught by Paul Nash (a lasting influence on Bawden and his contemporaries), and the popular E. W. Tristram. It was at the RCA that Bawden first met his 'kindred spirit', Eric Ravilious, the two quickly becoming firm friends, though entirely different in temperament. Shortly after leaving the college, the pair gained a prestigious commission to paint a mural for the refreshment room of Morley College in London.
Edward Bawden's influence on twentieth-century illustration and design is incalculable and; his graphic work is perhaps quintessentially English. There are traces of early influence: Beardsley, Lear, 'Dicky' Doyle and Paul Nash, but ultimately Bawden's was a distinctive voice which emerged from the shy, wry observation of the everyday life of his time. He first rented half of Brick House, the imposing Georgian house in Great Bardfield in the mid-1920s with Ravilious, and after his father purchased the whole house for him on his marriage to Charlotte Epton in 1932, he continued to live there until moving to Saffron Walden in 1970 after Charlotte's death..
A Voyage |
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Aesop's Fables: Hares Foxes & Eagles |
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Linocut
1970
One of a series of eight linocuts illustrating Aesop produced in 1970.
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An Old Crab and A Young |
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Linocut
1956 & 1970
This linocut, based on one of Aesop's fables, was commissioned by the designer John Lewis for his book A Handbook of Type and Illustration (Faber & Faber 1956). Bawden subsequently produced a series od eight Aesop's Fable s linocuts in 1970.
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Brick House, Great Bardfield |
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Watercolour
1955
(Purchased with assistance from The Art Fund)
This shows the rear of Bawden's house, with the studio added ten years before. Note the use of gouache to heighten the effect of snow, and the shades of the brickwork. The children playing are nieghbours.
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Brighton Pier |
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Colour Linocut
1977
(Donated by the Artist)
Apart from its double size image this, and the one of Liverpool Street, demonstrate the skill needed in simplifying complex iron structures so that their scale and overall impression is still conveyed, while at the same time every detail is registered in such a way that the six different printings for each colour can be successfully accomplished. The overall design uses collaged images at the two sides to good effect.
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Lindsell Church |
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Colour Linocut
1963
This is one of a number of exceptionally large linocuts that Bawden made in the 1960s and 70s. Lindsell Church, a few miles away from Great Bardfield, was a source of much stimulus to the local artists. Bawden, Aldridge and Hoyle all painted watercolours of it. Bawden, with a cheerful disregard for their lack of commercial appeal, often depicted churchyards, and this one is relieved by the inclusion of a gesture of everyday life and work, the barn.
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Liverpool Street Station |
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Colour Linocut
1960
Bawden always had an eye for detail in ironwork, and other similar decorative designs, and here the roof of Liverpool St Station, which in 1960 was still substantially hidden by layers of soot from steam trains, is given prominence. Bawden called the roof 'one of the wonders of London'.
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Queen Victoria |
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Colour Linocut
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SIx London Markets - Borough |
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Colour Lithograph from Linocut
1967
Curwen Press produced a series on London markets, all of which have now, with the passage of time, gone from their former locations (like Covent Garden for vegetables and flowers, and this one) or have ceased to exist as the need for traders to meet wholesale suppliers have changed. The lithographic process, which was used in this production, does not have the textual richness of an original linocut.
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Six London Markets - Billingsgate |
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Linocut
1967
Curwen Prints commissioned six London markets as a series in 1967. All of them, with the passage of time, have now gone from their former locations (like Covent Garden for vegetables and flowers and Smithfield for meat), or have ceased to exist as the need for traders to meet wholesale suppliers has changed. The prints in this series were prepared as linocuts and transferred to plates for offset lithography at the Curwen Studio and printed by Bawden himself, but in the process, some of the original textual richness gets lost.
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Six London Markets - Covent Garden Flower Market |
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Colour Lithograph from Linocut
1967
From a series of six "London Markets" produced for Curwen Press in 1967.
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SIx London Markets - Leadenhall |
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Colour Lithograph from Linocut
1967
From a series of six "London Markets" produced for Curwen Press in 1967.
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Six London Markets - Smithfield |
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Colour Lithograph from Linocut
1967
From a series of six "London Markets" produced for Curwen Press in 1967.
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The Belvedere, Genzano |
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Watercolour
1952
In 1951, after working on his mural for the Festival of Britain South Bank Exhibition, Bawden was recommended to visit Sicily, and subsequently, accompanied by Walter Hoyle, spent an active holiday competitively painting in and around the town of Enna.
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The Blue Plough, Saffron Walden |
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Colour Linocut
1962
This is a representation of Saffron Walden market, held on Tuesdays, and when the blue tractor and plough were regularly parked there by a local agricultural machinery firm. As each colour is individually applied to each print, variations can be introduced by the artist.
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The Dolls at Home |
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Collage
1947
This is the collage design for a lithograph produced for Lyons Teashops in 1947. It is interesting to see another example of Bawden collaging drawings and patterns to create a finished design, and more so in the many changes that can now been seen to have taken place before it was ultimately printed
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The Hound of the Baskervilles |
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Linocut
1986
This was one of a set of six linocut illustrations commissioned by the Folio Society Book Club for their edition published in 1987. Bawden produced a separate edition of 75 copies.
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The Market Place & Corn Exchange, Saffron Walden |
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Colour Linocut
1962
(Donated by the Artist's family)
The Corn Exchange had a first floor added in the 1970s when it was converted to its present use as a Library.
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Tyger, Tyger |
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Linocut
1974 & 1991
This has been reprinted out of series by Richard Bawden at our express wish to show the arresting way in which Bawden has treated the title of Blake’s familiar poem. He did not need to add the remaining words of the opening line (“burning bright in the forests of the night”) because it is all conveyed in the picture.
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