This exhibition of the artist and designer Eric Ravilious (1903 – 1942) explores the significant relationships and working collaborations between Ravilious and an important group of friends and affiliates.

Eric Ravilious (1903 – 1942) is now recognised as one of the most important and popular British artists of the 20th century. This major new exhibition explores the influence of Ravilious and his circle and their remarkable impact on British art and design in the 1930s and 1940s. Based on new research and telling a previously untold story, it chronicles the personal and professional relationships between Ravilious and artist-designers such as Paul Nash, John Nash, Enid Marx, Barnett Freedman, Eileen ‘Tirzah’ Garwood, Thomas Hennell, Douglas Percy Bliss, Peggy Angus, Helen Binyon, Diana Low, and one of his closest friends, Edward Bawden, bringing together nearly 500 paintings, prints, drawings, engravings, books, ceramics, wallpapers, and textiles – many rarely shown and previously unknown – and highlights key moments in the artists’ lives and work from first meetings at the Royal College of Art, to the evolution of their artistic practices into commercial and industrial design.

The exhibition has been created to mark the 75th anniversary of Ravilious’ tragic early death in Iceland during the Second World War and it finishes on a remarkable series of works from his time as an official war artist.

Curated by Andy Friend and the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne.