Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious

This beautifully illustrated book is the first full-length critical study to focus on the works of fine artist and printmaker, Tirzah Garwood (1908-1951), wife of artist Eric Ravilious.

Tirzah Garwood (1908-1951) proved herself an artist of rare talent, in a life tragically cut short by illness, yet little of her work has been seen in public since her Memorial Exhibition in 1952. Written by James Russell, author of the bestselling Ravilious, this beautifully illustrated book is published to coincide with the Dulwich Picture Gallery exhibition Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious, the first major exhibition in seventy years to explore the full range of Garwood’s achievements.

A witty observer of the human condition, Tirzah Garwood made her first breakthrough while still in her teens as a wood engraver of rare ability. After marrying Eric Ravilious she became a devoted mother to three children and at the same time took up paper marbling, quickly achieving renown for the dazzling originality of her decorative papers. In her early thirties she suffered the double blow of a grave breast cancer diagnosis and her husband’s death on active service in World War II. Undaunted, she wrote her autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield then began making collages and painting in oils, producing in a few short years a series of strange, beautiful house constructions and paintings.

In Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious these paintings and collaged constructions are for the first time given the public showcase and critical examination they deserve, revealing Garwood’s development of a distinctive ’sophisticated naive’ approach that subtly transformed innocent subjects to unsettling effect. More than ninety works by Tirzah Garwood - including books, studies and ephemera, almost exclusively from private collections - are accompanied by artworks by Eric Ravilious setting the context in which the artists worked together and exploring the shared interests and techniques of this remarkable creative couple. The book features new research, and includes essays by Eric and Tirzah’s granddaughter Ella Ravilious and writer Jennifer Higgie.

James Russell is an art historian and curator with a passion for twentieth-century British art and design. He is the author of the bestselling Ravilious (PWP, 2015) and Edward Bawden (PWP, 2018) which both accompanied blockbuster exhibitions at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Other notable exhibitions include Soutine: Kossoff (Hastings Contemporary, 2023), Peggy Angus: Designer, Teacher, Painter (Towner, 2014) and In Relation: Nine Couples who Transformed Modern British Art (Royal West of England Academy, 2018), which showcased works by Tirzah Garwood and Eric Ravilious. James studied History at Pembroke College, Cambridge.