Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden was born in Braintree in Essex, the only son a Cornishman with an extreme work ethic and a puritan mother who had been in the haberdashery trade. He grew up a lonely child by his own confession, with a butterfly net and a sketchbook, spending hours on end copying images from The Girls Own Paper, years he later describes as ¨the sissy years.¨ It was however this childhood that laid the foundations for him to become a hugely prolific painter, printer and graphic artist.


He studied at the Royal College of Art under Paul Nash, where he met Eric Ravilious and their strongly influential artistic companionship began. There was a according to Nash an' Outbreak of talent' with Bawden being thrown in amongst the most impressive intake the RCA had ever seen, to name but a few Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Enid Marx, Peggy Angus, John Aldridge, Stanley Heyter, Edward Ardizzone and Rex Whistler.

Bawden illustrated many books for the Curwen press and became famous for his design work for London Transport, Westminster Bank, Twinings, Fortnum and Mason and Imperial Airways.
He had great skill as a printmaker and used a variety of techniques including wood cuts, linocutting, copper engraving and line drawing and the beautiful images he made of 40's London strongly reflected the changing times.

Bawden and many of his contempories worked as war artists during the Second World War, and this work took Bawden all over the Middle East where he developed his skill in drawing from life, in evocative portraits of soldiers in captivity when he was himself a prisoner of war.

being He was awarded CBE in 1946 and continued to produce original and innovative work right up to his death aged 86.


A recently published book Edward Bawden and his Circle by Malcome Yorke charts the huge inspiration Bawden was to his fellow artists and puts into context all the connections and influences of this groundbreaking period of British art.