Here are some of the Christmas cards from various Great Bardfield artists. I have always thought it important to send out something decorative and interesting at Christmas and the Bardfield artists were the same.
Eric Ravilious – Christmas Card
With some of the artists like Walter Hoyle the envelopes were just as important as the cards for decoration. Many of them were numbered as editioned prints. Signed from Walter and his wife Denise.
Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card Envelope, 1986
Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card, 1986
Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card and Envelope, 1983
Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card
Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card
Walter Hoyle – Christmas Envelope
Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card
Michael Rothenstein – Christmas Card & Design for Faber and Faber, 1962
The note below is from Michael Rothenstein to David Bland of Faber and Faber. Faber were planning the Christmas card in June as the letter is dated 28th of that month. The picture above shows the finished design to the left and the prototype to the right.
Here is a further rough of the Christmas tree idea. I want to make the star at the top of the main image: star of Bethlehem, star of hope, of joy, as well as the star of morning, the tree, for me this is the most potent Christmas image….
Below are two Christmas cards from Kenneth Rowntree his wife Diana and family.
Kenneth Rowntree – Christmas Card
Kenneth Rowntree – Christmas Card
Below are some more images from other Great Bardfield artists.
Great Bardfield being a small community of artists, it is only natural that they would borrow ideas, items and homes from each other to work in. Here are a few examples of connections in illustrated books by the people in the community that all were published within a few years of each other.
Edward Bawden – Sunday Evening, 1949 (Life in an English Village)
The picture above shows the sitting room at Ives Farm, Great Bardfield. Tom Ives is pictured in the corner with his pipe. It’s depicted in a lithograph by Edward Bawden from the King Penguin book ‘Life in an English Village’ (1949), around the same time Aldridge himself used this house in a book illustration for ‘Adam Was A Ploughman’ (1947) by Clarence Henry Warren.
John Aldridge – Living Room, 1947 (Adam Was A Ploughman)
On the fireplace you can see a Staffordshire figure of a lion by a tree, it was illustrated again on another page in ‘Adam Was A Ploughman’, pictured below.
John Aldridge – Lion, 1947 (Adam Was A Ploughman)
The photograph below is from Volume Five of The Saturday Book (1945), in a chapter by Edwin Smith on ‘Household Gods’ and is the same Staffordshire Lion.
Edwin Smith – Lion, 1945 (The Saturday Book)
Back to the drawing of Ives farm living room is a corn-dolly hanging up, below in the King Penguin book ‘Life in an English Village’ I have picked it out in yellow.
John Aldridge – Living Room, 1947 (Adam Was A Ploughman)
Edward Bawden – Corn-dollies, 1949 (Life in an English Village)
To the bottom right of the image above is also the bell used in the Pub lithograph below. Below the bell, the one-eyed man is Fred Mizen, a gardener and thatcher who also had a talent for making corn-dollie, it is likely all of them are by him.
Edward Bawden – The Bell (detail), 1949 (Life in an English Village)
Michael Rothenstein – Clock and Candlestick, 1942
The painting by Rothenstein above is a curious still life of a table and village scene. Curiously enough these items appear again in fifth Volume of The Saturday Book, along with the Aldridge Lion photograph. The article mentioned the clock ‘flanked by exotic shapes contrived from coloured balls on candlesticks’ it is wisely assumed that the picture is from Rothenstein’s house.
Edwin Smith – Clock and Candlestick, 1945 (The Saturday Book)
Clarence Henry Warren – Adam Was A Ploughman, 1947
Leonard Russell (Editor) – The Saturday Book, 1945
Noel Carrington – Life in an English Village, 1949
The Puffin picture book series was inspired from various continental and Russian children’s books; as Insel-Bücherei publications inspired the King Penguin series, the Puffin books also inspired others due to the handy size for displaying information. Here are some books that are the same size but are styled in a suspiciously similar way. Some of them are a series of BBC books, others are by tea companies and the V&A.
I never really cared for the over complicated etchings of Graham Clarke but I discovered his linocuts on a Shell Poster and was amazed. They are full of the countryside and vivid colours, a wonderful construction and to me, totally pleasing.
Graham Clarke – Harvest Moon
Born in 1941, Clarke’s upbringing in the austerity of war-time and post-war Britain, made him reliant on his own imaginative resources.
He was educated at Beckenham Art School, where he fell under the spell of Samuel Palmer’s romantic and visionary view of the Shoreham countryside. At the Royal College of Art he specialised in illustration and printmaking, and pursued his interest in calligraphy. With encouragement from Edward Bawden, Clarke began refining an individual aesthetic, printing traditional landscapes marked by a sense of locality and genre. Graduating in 1964, most of these prints are from the 60s.
Graham Clarke – Llanthony Priory, Autumn (Commissioned by Shell)
It is always interesting to look at how an artist illustrates a book, what scenes are chosen for the dust jacket. Normally when a book goes into paperback form the publisher either uses the same image from the hardback copy or gets another illustrator in, but with this Iris Murdoch book Edward Bawden would do two covers. Once for Faber & Faber in 1952 and again for Penguin Books in 1962.
Edward Bawden – The Flight From The Enchanter by Iris Murdoch, 1952
The design of the 1952 dust jacket is a mixture of collage of linocut and ink drawn design of cliffs and lettering. The colour was added by the printer under Bawden’s instruction
‘You get real fish here,’ said Annette. ‘Let’s see the real fish.’ She turned and suddenly made for the fish-bowl. Mischa followed her. Annette looked at him from the other side of the bowl. †
Edward Bawden – The Flight From The Enchanter linocut design,
printed for Edward Bawden’s Book of Cuts 1978.
Edward Bawden – The Flight From The Enchanter by Iris Murdoch, 1962
Then with a quick movement she kicked the chair away and hung stiffly in mid-air. The chandelier felt firm, her grip was strong, there was no terrible rending sound as the chain parted company with the ceiling. After all, thought Annette, I don’t weigh much. †
Iris Murdoch – The Flight From The Enchanter, 1952
Here is a poem found in Volume 13 of the Saturday Book by Gerald Bullett, from 1953. The illustrations are by John Nash.
Now as my lamp burns low
I remember a green land of long ago,
A plum-coloured train chuffing and puffing about,
And me, lucky, carefully lifted out
And led away into heaven through a White wicket,
Proudly surrendering half a railway ticket.
Between the shafts of a high dogcart stood
A patient pony, warm and brown and good,
Good to touch and fondle, with oily eyes
Incapable of anger or surprise,
Who at a word, a lifting of slack reins,
Carried me and my cousins along the lanes,
Past wooded meadows and the enormous stare
Of cattle, and gray sheep, browsing there.
The sky moment by moment growing dim
While still the sun burned on the western rim,
Rooks home-going, hedges warm with scent,
I rode into my kingdom of content:
So found the farm, Aunt Jinnie, Uncle Ned,
The sleepy supper and the dreamless bed,
To wake next morning in a world new-made.
O Earth and Sky, most tried of comforters:
O morning glory aslant across the years
From far fields, where every blade and weed
Miraculously nourished my heart’s need:
It is here on the map, my joy-bright country
Where grief has brief being, despair no entry,
And in this aged almanack I can trace.
The year, the very hours, of blessedness.
But their unique conjunction, place and time,
Is now no more than a remembered rhyme
Quickening the drowsy blood. Too soon, alas,
The dews dissolve on leaves and shining grass.
Too soon the glossy chestnut, newly come
From silken fold, his paradisial bloom
By malice of corroding time must lose,
The sun droop, the flower of morning close.
80 shall my Eden, as all memories must,
When this my lamp goes out,
Dwindle into a little heap of dust,
Resolving faith and doubt …
In whose hand held, or what abysm lost?
THE POEM BY GERALD BULLETT
THE ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN NASH
In the past week while looking at some of my books, I noticed that many of them have Ex Libris plates. I have not really thought of having such a thing myself. I always thought although decorative, in most cases they are dull and damage books – though it is nice to trace the possessions of people. Some of the bookplates you are able to Google the people involved, others it is a mystery.
Captain Thomas John Norman Hilken, DSO. (1901-1969)
Richard Wayne. The illustration is lovely and I thought slightly Bloomsbury but I couldn’t find any mention of him.
Stephen Brook
A Book Society bookplate for the public to fill in by Rex Whistler, below another design by Whistler, this time for Duff Cooper.
Trinity Hall Library, Cambridge
Keith Douglas – Second World War Poet.
Samuel Courtauld – Art Collector and founder of the Courtauld Institute of Art. Designed by Paul Nash.
John & Myfanwy Piper – Artists and writer.
Raymond Lister – Society Ironworker and writer on Romantic Watercolourists, designed by Reynolds Stone.
Brian M Warner. A mass produced bookplate by D.W who is unknown to me.
Trevor and Anne Martin
Hengrave Hall library bookplate. Hengrave Hall is a Tudor manor house near Bury St. Edmunds and has been a nunnery. It is now a wedding venue.
E G Crowsley.
Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, CMG, MC, KStJ, PC. As noted on the plate, it features a beautiful drawing by William Orpen.
Angela Carter the Novelist.
One of the Prince Friedrich’s of Liechtenstein
John Denham Austin, writer. Figures depicted are Samuel Johnson and James Boswell.
Norbert Hardy Wallis – Translator and writer. 2nd Lieutenant in the South Wales Borderers.
Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert McDougall, of the McDougall’s Flour company. His daughter married Prince Andrew Alexandrovitch of Russia, eldest nephew of Tsar Nicholas II.
1956 was a busy year for Edward Bawden. In the medium of linocut he completed two prints of Brighton and three large prints based in Great Bardfield. He illustrated the book The Sixpence that Rolled Away and designed the dust jacket for The Flight from the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch in linocut as well.
Further illustration work came with a lino cut of An Old Crab and a Young Crab and an etching of Watermellons for A Handbook of type and Illustration by John Lewis. Fortnum and Mason would commission him to illustrate their Christmas catalogue, something he used to do in the 1930s. In magazines and newspapers he designed a series of adverts for Chubb Locks.
Other than making prints close to home in Great Bardfield, Bawden travelled to Ironbridge. In the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition he displayed his watercolours of Canada painted in 1951 and Enna in Sicily, painted in 1953.
Edward Bawden – Enna, Sicily, 1953. From the RA Summer Exhibition 1956.
We start at home in Great Bardfield where Bawden was printing the linocuts of Ives Farmhouse and the farmyard behind the cottage.
Edward Bawden – Ives Farmhouse, Great Bardfield, 1956
Ives Farmhouse is listed as the name of the print in the editioned version but there are a handful of ‘artist proof’ copies of this print titled The Road to Thaxted, like the copy the Fry Gallery own.
Edward Bawden – Ives Farm, Great Bardfield, 1956
One of the Ives Farmyard proofs has ‘poor print done by EB because no printing press.’ I would assume they mean the patchy printing of the colours.
Edward Bawden – Study for: Town Hall Yard, Great Bardfield, 1956
Edward Bawden – Town Hall Yard, Great Bardfield, 1956
Bawden makes good use of an ornamental pattern found in the buildings and finds decorative possibilities in the pollarded and leafless trees. †
The Town Hall Yard linocut would be sold at the Zwemmer Gallery in their first (of many) ‘New Editions’ shows – a selection of prints by various printmakers. It is also believed the Ives Farm prints were also available here. The Town Hall Yard was one of the prints that ended up in the Manchester Pictures for Schools collection, it is assumed that as theirs is an Artist Proof, Bawden donated it to the Pictures for Schools scheme.
Edward Bawden – Printing the Sunday Times, 1956
The history of Printing the Sunday Times isn’t recorded, in the book The Edward Bawden Editioned Prints book by Jeremy Greenwood it is noted.
It has not been possible to discover the origin of this print, but it was perhaps commissioned by The Sunday Times whose permission at least would have been necessary to allow Bawden access to the plant.
There are a few different ideas to why this print has come about, but my theory is that is was likely commissioned by Bawden’s friend Robert Harling.
In the 1930s Harling worked for the advertising firms, Stuarts as a Designer and Everett Jones and Delamere as the Creative Director where he hired Bawden to illustrate the Fortnum and Mason catalogues. Harling was the designer who hired Eric Ravilious to design the cover to Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack in 1938. In 1945 Everett Jones and Delamere was liquidated and Harling moved to the staff of the Sunday Times along side Ian Fleming who was just about to write his first James Bond novel. Harling was the consultant designer to the paper from 1945 to the 80s, he would also guest at an architecture critic. In 1953 Bawden would do some illustration work for the Sunday Times for the article ‘Another Brighton’ by Clifford Musgrave (September 6th 1953).
Given that Harling was a designer for the paper and Bawden was such a close friend it could be guessed he:
Got Bawden onto the premises to make a print of the topic
Bawden saw the printing plant during the 1953 commission
Harling commissioned the print for members of the staff as an internal gift.
Edward Bawden – The Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1956
The two prints of Brighton show a summers day and the south coast in winter. It would be the first of a series of prints and drawings Bawden made of Brighton.
Edward Bawden – Snowstorm at Brighton, 1956
Below are two illustrations for Chubb Locks, one with the full text under and a tale on how Chubb Locks can improve security, all of the adverts follow this style. Under is another line drawing.
Edward Bawden – Chubb Lock Advert, Drawn, 1956 (Published 1957)
Edward Bawden – Chubb Lock Advert, Drawn, 1956 (Published 1957)
Edward Bawden went on a working holiday to Iron Bridge with the War Artists John Nash and Carel Weight.
I was at Ironbridge for about six weeks in September and October 1956 and was joined by John Aldridge, John Nash and Carel Weight. Each of us in turn painted the famous bridge’. ‘Houses at Ironbridge was almost the last painting I was able to do during my stay. ‡
Edward Bawden. Houses at Ironbridge
Edward Bawden – Iron Bridge, 1956
Edward Bawden – The House at Ironbridge, 1956
Edward Bawden – Ironbridge Church, 1956
Back at home in Essex Bawden painted Lindsell Church twice and then would go back in 1958 to paint it again before starting a massive linocut of the church in the early 60s.
Edward Bawden – Lindsell Church, 1956
Edward Bawden – Lindsell Church #1, 1956
One of the books Bawden Illustrated as mentioned above is the Sixpence that rolled away. A curious tale by poet Louis MacNeice.
Edward Bawden’s Dust Jacket for The Sixpence that rolled away.
Edward Bawden’s illustration inside The Sixpence that rolled away
Below this are the two illustrations Bawden would make for the John Lewis book ‘A Handbook of Type & Illustration’ with an early Aesop’s print, An Old Crab & A Young Crab. Bawden would print a series of Aesop’s fable prints in the 70s.
Edward Bawden – An Old Crab & A Young Crab, 1956
The etching below was likely made for the John Lewis book as well, rather than taken from his archive. But Bawden’s style of etching remained very similar throughout his life, from the works as a student to the works he made for the Orient Line. The perspectives looked like they were forced than natural.
Edward Bawden – Watermelons, 1956
The Bawden designed chair and table in green, 1956
The strangest of the commissions to come in 1956 was again from Robert Harling and his client, Bilston Foundries Ltd. A garden seat, bench and table were designed by Bawden.
Churchill sat on it. The ‘Bilston Garden Seat’ was the brainchild of Robert Harling when he was working for an advertising agency. In a letter to Halina Graham the designer wrote, ‘The firm that produced the seat made baths, it was their main line of business & they had no faith in cast iron seats, but I remember going up to Warrington to get information about preparing the design. A technician on the staff of the Furniture School of the Royal College of Art made a model in wood of the design for casting that in itself must have been very expensive. When the seat was first produced & shown at Harrods I think that it probably failed expectations and only later when it became unobtainable did the demand for it increase’.
Bilston Foundries’ advertising leaflet describes it as ‘an ornamental seat unique in its gracefulness, and as distinguished by its careful finish as by its outstanding appearance’. The advertised price was 18 guineas. A cast iron chair along similar lines is illustrated in House and Gardens “Diction of Design”.
Edward Bawden – Flight from the Enchanter, Dust Jacket illustration, 1956.
The cover to The Flight from the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch is half made in Lino and the type and mountains are blown-up pen drawings. The original linocut is below in black, issued as a limited edition print in 1989.
Edward Bawden – Flight from the Enchanter linoblock design, 1956.
At the end of the year Bawden took part in a shared exhibition of Great Bardfield artists with Michael Rothenstein, Geoffrey Clarke and Clifford Smith from the 25th November to 7th December.
Below is a variation on the print above of An Old Crab & A Young Crab used as Edward and his wife Charlotte’s Christmas card that year.
Edward Bawden – An Old Crab & A Young Crab – Christmas Card, 1956
To finish the post off I thought what could be better than a whole run of illustrated magazine covers by Bawden for the Twentieth Century Magazine in 1956. It was in 1956 that Bawden was elected to the Royal Academy of Art. I would guess this happened in February as his credit for February is ARA and his credit for March is RA.
The font in the church shows it being the church in Great Bardfield and also featured in the King Penguin book, Life In An English Village.
The building to the right is the cottage featured in the Ives Farm print above.
Above is an illustration from Liverpool Street Station, London.
As a footnote Robert Harling wrote the book, The Drawings of Edward Bawden in 1950.
† V&A – CIRC.865-1956 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2005-2008 ‡ Tate – T00206
