Edward Bawden
Encyclopedia
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, RA
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
(1903 – 1989) was a British painter, illustrator and graphic artist. He was also famous for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture. During an interview, Edward Gorey
Edward Gorey
Edward St. John Gorey was an American writer and artist noted for his macabre illustrated books.-Early life:...
mentioned that Bawden was one of his favorite artists, lamenting the fact that not many people remembered or knew about this fine artist.
Education, discovery and early work
Bawden was born in Braintree, EssexBraintree, Essex
Braintree is a town of about 42,000 people and the principal settlement of the Braintree district of Essex in the East of England. It is northeast of Chelmsford and west of Colchester on the River Blackwater, A120 road and a branch of the Great Eastern Main Line.Braintree has grown contiguous...
, and first studied at the Cambridge School of Art
Anglia Ruskin University
Anglia Ruskin University is one of the largest universities in Eastern England, United Kingdom, with a total student population of around 30,000.-History:...
from 1919 to 1921. This was followed in 1922 by a scholarship to the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
School of Design, where he took a diploma in illustration until 1925. Importantly, here he met fellow student and future collaborator Eric Ravilious
Eric Ravilious
Eric William Ravilious was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver.-Career:Ravilious studied at Eastbourne School of Art, and at the Royal College of Art, where he studied under Paul Nash and became close friends with Edward Bawden.He began his working life as a muralist,...
, both of whom were taught by the influential artist Paul Nash
Paul Nash (artist)
Paul Nash was a British landscape painter, surrealist and war artist, as well as a book-illustrator, writer and designer of applied art. He was the older brother of the artist John Nash.-Early life:...
, who referred to them as "an extraordinary outbreak of talent".
By 1925 Bawden was working one day a week for the Curwen Press
Curwen Press
The Curwen Press was founded by the Reverend John Curwen in 1863 to publish sheet music for the "tonic sol-fa" system. The Press was based in Plaistow, Newham, east London, England, where Curwen was a pastor from 1844...
(as was Ravilious and their former tutor, Nash), producing illustrations for leading accounts such as London Transport
London Passenger Transport Board
The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for public transport in London, UK, and its environs from 1933 to 1948...
, Westminster Bank
Westminster Bank
Westminster Bank was a British retail bank which operated in England and Wales from 1834 until its merger into the National Westminster Bank in 1970; it remains a registered company but is dormant...
, Twinings
Twinings
Twinings is a marketer of tea based in Andover, Hampshire, England.- History :The founder of Twinings, Thomas Twining, opened the first known tea room, at 216 Strand, London, in 1706, which is still operating today. The firm's logo, created in 1787, is one of the world's oldest in continuous use...
, Poole Potteries
Poole Pottery
Poole Pottery is a pottery manufacturer, originally based in Poole, Dorset, England. The company was founded in 1873 on Poole quayside, where it continued to produce pottery by hand before moving its factory operations away from the quay in 1999. Production continued at the new site in Sopers Lane...
and Shell-Mex.
In 1928, Bawden was commissioned by Sir Joseph Duveen at the rate of £1 per day to create a mural for the Refectory at Morley College
Morley College
Morley College is an adult education college in London, England. It was founded in the 1880s and has a student population of 10,806 adult students...
, London with Ravilious and Charles Mahoney. The mural was opened in 1930 by former Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Stanley Baldwin, at the time leader of the opposition, having ended his premiership in 1929.
In the early 1930s he was discovered by the famous Stuart Advertising Agency
Stuart Advertising Agency
Although little mention of Stuart's Advertising Agency can be found in books on pre-war advertising, Stuarts was, during the 1920s and 30s, one of the leading London advertising agencies. Located at Kingsway House, Kingsway W.C.2, the firm was founded in 1922 by H. Stuart Menzies...
, owned by H. Stuart Menzies
H. Stuart Menzies
Hugh Stuart Menzies was a British advertising executive. Born in London, in 1922 he set up the Stuart Advertising Agency that worked with contemporary artists of the time such as Edward Bawden, Edward McKnight Kauffer, Ben Nicholson, and Barbara Hepworth...
and Marcus Brumwell. At this time Bawden produced some of his most humorous and innovative work for Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason, often shortened to just "Fortnum's" is a department store, situated in central London, with two other branches in Japan. Its headquarters is located at 181 Piccadilly, where it was established in 1707 by William Fortnum and Hugh Mason...
and Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long range air transport company, operating from 1924 to 1939 and serving parts of Europe but especially the Empire routes to South Africa, India and the Far East...
. It was also in this period that Bawden produced the tiles for the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
, which were exhibited at the International Building Trades Exhibition at Olympia
Olympia, London
Olympia is an exhibition centre and conference centre in West Kensington, on the boundary between The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham, London, W14 8UX, England. It opened in the 19th century and was originally known as the National Agricultural Hall.Opened in 1886,...
in April 1928.
During the Second World War, Edward Bawden served as one of the official war artist
War artist
A war artist depicts some aspect of war through art; this might be a pictorial record or it might commemorate how "war shapes lives." War artists have explored a visual and sensory dimension of war which is often absent in written histories or other accounts of warfare.- Definition and context:A...
s for Britain. He made many evocative watercolor painting
Watercolor painting
Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...
s recording the war effort in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. His paintings show the unique life led by the Marsh Arabs
Marsh Arabs
The Marsh Arabs , also known as the Maʻdān , are inhabitants of the Tigris-Euphrates marshlands in the south and east of Iraq and along the Iranian border....
in southern Iraq, particularly their majestic dwellings made of reeds.
Later work
Great Bardfield
Great Bardfield is a large village in Essex, England.The Great Lodge at Bardfield is a Grade II listed building, which built in the 16th century and was given to Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII as one of several properties as part of a generous settlement for an amicable divorce. The grounds include...
, Essex from the 1930s to 1970. While living at Bardfield he was an important member of the Great Bardfield Artists
Great Bardfield Artists
The Great Bardfield Artists were a community of artists who lived in Great Bardfield, a village in north west Essex, England, during the middle years of the 20th century....
. 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
St Ives, Cornwall
St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a shift in commercial...
art community in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, who, after the war, were chiefly dominated by abstractionists.
In 1949 Bawden provided illustrations for the book "London is London – A Selection of Prose and Verse by D. M. Low".
During the 1950s the Great Bardfield Artists organised a series of large ‘open house’ exhibitions which attracted national press attention. Positive reviews and the novelty of viewing art works in the artists own homes (including Bawden's Brick House) led to thousands visiting the remote village during the summer exhibitions of 1954, 1955 and 1958. As well as these shows the Great Bardfield Artists held several touring exhibitions of their work in 1957, 1958 and 1959.
After the death of his wife in 1970, Bawden moved to the nearby town of Saffron Walden, where he continued to work until his death. Bawden's work can be seen in many major collections and is shown regularly at the Fry Art Gallery
Fry Art Gallery
The Fry Art Gallery is an art gallery located in Saffron Walden, Essex, England. In its present form the gallery was established in 1985 and it is managed by the Fry Art Gallery Society...
in Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is located north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and approx north of London...
and the Bedford Museum & Art Gallery
Bedford Museum & Art Gallery
Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum is the principal art gallery and museum in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, run by Bedford Borough Council and the Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Collection.- Overview :...
in Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...
.
Teaching, appointments and awards
Having briefly taught design and book illustration at Goldsmith's College from 1928–1931, Bawden then went on to teach at the Royal College of Art from 1930 - 1963 (minus the War years). In 1968, Bawden became a tutor at the Royal Academy Schools and Senior Lecturer at Leicester College of Art and Design.Among his numerous appointments and awards that came later in his career are:
- 1946 – Awarded CBE (Commander of the British Empire)
- 1947 – Associate of the Royal Academy
- 1949 – Appointed Royal Designer for Industry (RSA)
- 1949/50 – Appointed guest instructor for the Summers of 1949/50 at the Banff School of Fine Art, Canada
- 1951 – Appointed Trustee of the Tate Gallery (1951–1958)
- 1956 – Elected Royal Academician
- 1962 – Appointed Honorary Associate of Manchester College of Art
- 1963 – Appointed Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art
- 1964 – Awarded Silver Medal by the Society of Industrial Artists
- 1970 – Received Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Art
- 1974 – Received Honorary Doctorate from Essex University
- 1979 – Made Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers
Writings
- The English Scene ; Sheneval Press 1952
- Life in an English Village ; King Penguin Books no 57,Peguin Books 1949
- Hold Fast Your Teeth ; Routledge and Keegan, 1963
- Edward Bawden, war artist, and his letters home, 1940-1945 (edited by Ruari McLean); Aldershot, Scolar Press in association with the Imperial War Museum, 1989