This talk explores the life and work of Eric Ravilious, one of the most distinctive and enduring British artists of the 20^th Century. Painter, printmaker, illustrator and designer, Ravilious transformed everyday English subjects into images of remarkable beauty, atmosphere and emotional resonance. From farm implements and rolling hills to railway carriages, village churches, greenhouses and shop windows he possessed an extraordinary ability to reveal the poetry and mystery hidden within ordinary life. The talk also features his work as an Official War Artist during WW2, where his calm, haunting images of aircraft, ships, submarines and coastal defences captured both the machinery and quiet tension of wartime Britain.

Dr James Taylor is a former curator of pictures of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the author of “Picturing the Pacific: Joseph Banks and the Shipboard Artists of Cook and Flinders.