Edward Bawden in Norfolk

There is nothing I have found that Bawden said in favour of Norfolk that would make this post become more interesting than me presenting some of his works to you. The works I have found showed that when he visited a place he painted it from various angles. I think all of these works were painted in the late 1960s as Bawden had an exhibition at The Fine Art Society in November of 1968 of paintings from Ireland, the Middle East and Norfolk.

The Church of St Michael The Archangel in Booton, about 10 miles drive from Aylsham is an architectural marvel that you don’t see in Britain. Designed in French Gothic style with pinnacles and two towers it might be a small set from Lord of the Rings.

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 The Church of St. Michael The Archangel, Booton, Norfolk,

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 Edward Bawden – Design for The Church of St. Michael The Archangel, Booton, Norfolk, 1966

The painting below I rather like for its bold outline painting, but more for the shade of foliage to the left and white church stone in front, the church is painted  in a gradient from white on the left, to black flints on the right.

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 Edward Bawden – The Church of St. Michael The Archangel, Booton, Norfolk, 1966

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 Edward Bawden – The Church of St. Michael The Archangel, Booton, Norfolk, 1966

Worstead Church is signed but looks more unfinished. It has the hints of a John Piper in the colour blotting and slight unfinished abstraction, though this may be because it mostly was unfinished.

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 Edward Bawden – Worstead Church, 1966

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 Edward Bawden – Worstead Church, 1966

Above a detail section of the Church that makes Bawden’s linocuts so wonderful; He takes a section out of scenes when making them into linocuts (on the Road To Thaxsted is a good example where he has cropped the picture with part of the Cottage roof but did not show the whole scene. If all the cottage was to appear it would look very twee). Bawden has also cut grooved grass, and a wild hacking of the lino made the distress on the building. Its printing in such a dark blue it looks like a negative image from film and to be a little provocative, I have inverted the image as a negative below.. I think it looks more pleasing, more like an Ed Kluz, though Edward wouldn’t thought much to my meddling!

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 after Edward Bawden – Worstead Church, 1966 (Inverted image)

The following images are Bawden as a good watercolour artist, using a wash on the grass and then a darker series of lines, the sky made up of geometric clouds and the trees inked out in pen and filled in with a broad green wash in a grey of the church and a green.

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 Edward Bawden – St Mary’s Church, Marlingford, Norfolk.

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 Edward Bawden – St Mary’s, Marlingford IV, 1968

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 Edward Bawden – The Churches of All Saints and St Mary’s, Great Melton, Norfolk, 1968

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 Edward Bawden – Little Melton Church, Norfolk, 1968

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 Edward Bawden – North Creake Abbey – Interior, Norfolk, 1967

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 Edward Bawden – Birnham Priory, Norfolk, 1968

 Original Advert for the Fine Art Society Exhibition.

To see my post on Edward Bawden in King’s Lynn, click here.

A Trip To Norfolk

A short post with some of the photos I took on a trip to North Norfolk.

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Piper in Terrington St Clement

Here are two photographs by John Piper and two paintings, both in different styles. They focus on the such of St Clement’s, in Terrington St Clement. A large village in Norfolk, England. It is situated in the drained marshlands to the south of the Wash, 7 miles west of King’s Lynn, Norfolk, and 5 miles east of Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, on the old route of the A17 trunk road.

As well as showing the different artistic techniques for one subject, it also shows how Piper used his photographs as a visual reference when back in his studio (as I noted in the post ‘Lens and Pens’).

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 John Piper – Terrington St Clement Church, 1975.

Five years apart between them both, the 1975 painting is a classic Piper picture and I am amazed it wasn’t editioned into a screen-print as the levels of detail in it are remarkable, the blocked out lighter panels of the windows and reversed light outline of the bell tower against the typical Piper sky.

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 John Piper – Terrington St Clement Church, Norfolk.

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 John Piper – Knowlton Church, Dorset, 1938

The picture below from 1980 is far more abstract and wild with colour. It is looking more like a study of a painting. The outlines and abstracted features of the building draughtsmanship are typically Piper. Although the colouring may not look like his works at that time, I would suggest they are a throwback to when Piper used collage in the 1930s. As with the Knowlton Church collage, blocks of colour are used with outlines. It makes an interesting marriage of new and old techniques.

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 John Piper – Terrington St Clement Church, 1980

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 John Piper – Terrington St Clement Church, Norfolk.

Below is a video I found on Youtube of a drone flight around the church, I wonder what Piper would have made of such a technology?