Overview
In December 1939, the newly formed War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC), a British government body established to commission artists to "record" the Second World War, appointed Eric Ravilious (1903–1942) as one of its first official "war artists." He was assigned to the Admiralty in 1940 and given the rank of captain with the Royal Marines. In 1942, he transferred to the Royal Air Force.
During his time as a war artist, Ravilious produced numerous watercolors, drawings, and lithographs for the WAAC, depicting naval activities, coastal defenses, building interiors, aircraft, and airfields, fifty of which are now in the collection of the Imperial War Museum (IWM).
Ravilious's WAAC commissions saw him posted to a range of locations across Northern Europe: Chatham Dockyard in Kent, a flotilla off the coast of Norway, Newhaven in East Sussex, the Royal Naval Air Station in Dundee, RAF Clifton near York, and RAF Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire, to name a few. He observed and documented each setting, creating artwork that sought to provide an insight into the distinctive environments, places, and daily activities he witnessed and experienced.
Eric Ravilious: War Artist—unlike earlier publications with a focus on Ravilious's artwork—explores his WAAC commissions in depth, dissecting the detail of the locations, spaces, and subjects that Ravilious sought to document. Drawing extensively on his correspondence with family, friends, and fellow war artists, this generously illustrated publication seeks to examine what Ravilious’s work can reveal about the Second World War in the years leading up to his untimely death in September 1942.
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