WHAT? Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious

WHERE? Dulwich Picture Gallery, London SE21 7AD

WHEN?  Now until 26th May 2025 

WHY GO? For the comfort and joy of art. Home is where the art was for Tirzah Garwood, a visionary artist, loving mother and famously the wife of Eric Ravilious, the celebrated war artist who died a hero in 1942 when his plane crashed over the Arctic.

Nicknamed Tirzah (her real name was Eileen Lucy), Garwood’s autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield is both quirky and touching as she navigates her way through art school, meets and marries her tutor Ravilious in 1930 and joins the Great Bardfield figurative artists community in Essex, centred around Ravilious and Edward Bawden.

The ups and downs of married life of two artists living and working together comes across in this long awaited first major retrospective of Garwood. 

Focusing almost entirely on her work which has long been overshadowed by her more famous husband’s, it is a tribute to family life, from witty etchings that touch on domesticity, colourful oil paintings that hint of surrealism to collages of chocolate box houses that are beyond cosy. 

 It’s all a glorious slice of British life throughout the Thirties to the early Fifties when sadly she succumbed to breast cancer and died aged 42 leaving behind three young children. 

Words from her autobiography leap off the page as Tamsin Grieg recites great chunks on the Gallery’s Bloomberg app.  It echoes Garwood’s eclectic style that suggests we join her for a nice cup of tea by the fire.

This is the perfect Christmas treat!

IN THE KNOW If Garwood was not renowned for her paintings, she always was for her unique marbled papers. 

She churned them out to make ends meet when times were hard and experimented to create extraordinary patterns that were an instant success with publishers and interior design shops. 

The exhibition offers a rare chance to see Garwood's original marbled papers that have inspired generations of graphic artists.