Collection: Eric Ravilious   1903 - 1942 

Ravilious, born in 1903, studied on a scholarship at the RCA (1922-25) where his tutors included William Rothenstein and Paul Nash and he first met life-long friend Edward Bawden. In the 1920s he made his early reputation with wood-engravings but by 1936 had started making lithographs with the Curwen Press and taking commissions for illustration and book jacket design whilst continuing to paint the southern English countryside.

Ravilious was later assigned to the Royal Navy as one of the first Official War Artists in 1941, being transferred the year after to the Air Ministry. On service to Iceland in August of that year, he died whilst accompanying an air sea rescue mission. The Imperial War Museum held an important retrospective exhibition of his work in 2004 and he is represented in many public collections.