Eric Ravilious: Imagined Realities

by Alan Powers

Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) is now firmly one of the most popular artists of his period. Eric Imagined Realities includes illustrations of many previously unpublished paintings, including a number from private collections, as well as surveying his other artistic activities. The text draws on many letters and other documents, again previously unpublished, and is the most comprehensive account of Ravilious's career ever published. It also attempts to position Ravilious in relation to English art of his time, and more recent critical and cultural issues.

Genres: Art

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 7, 2004

About the author

Alan Powers is a teacher, researcher and writer specialising in architecture and design.

Powers trained as an art historian at University of Cambridge, gaining an undergraduate degree and a PhD.

As a writer Powers has been prolific, writing reviews, magazine articles, obituaries of artists and architects as well as books. He has concentrated on 20th century British architecture and architectural conservation. He has also written books on the design of book jackets, shop fronts, book collectors, and the artist Eric Ravilious as well as monographs on Serge Chermayeff, and the British firms of Tayler and Green and of Aldington, Graig and Collinge.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are very few pleasures in life that give real satisfaction and with Ravilious you get a true sense of satisfaction. A man who brings a certain feeling that try as one might you know they don't age but mature.

Many lovers of his artwork wonder how it would have evolved if the plane flying to iceland during the war had not gone missing.

If you want to while away a few hours just enjoyng Ravilious's art, then do so. Take pleasure in those water colours and realise that this great man was lost to us far to soon.

[Nat]

There's something in common between my attraction to mid-century ordinary language philosophy, the silliest, most English, and smallest-scale type of philosophy and liking Ravilious's watercolors and woodcuts. And even my interest in military aviation is best expressed by Ravilious's intentionally naïve representations—I love the shapes and their movement, and want to ignore the awful things that they bring about.

[LemontreeLime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only skimmed text, illustrations amazing!!

[Sue Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need to rate this book twice, for the illustrations and for the writing. The illustrations are superb, the writing less so, it is too dense for me. I guess it was aimed at the serious art collector. But from what I gleaned from the dense text, Eric Ravillious was an intriguing person and I would have liked more on how he ticked.