Eric Ravilious
1903–1942 · British painter, watercolourist and wood-engraver
Eric Ravilious (Acton, 1903 – off Iceland, 1942) was a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver. He is best known for his watercolours of English landscapes, such as the South Downs of Sussex and Castle Hedingham, which combine a clear, modernist sensibility with a touch of wry humour.
He grew up in Eastbourne and studied at the Royal College of Art, where he became a close friend of Edward Bawden and was encouraged in wood-engraving by Paul Nash. His engravings illustrated hundreds of books, and since 1938 one of his woodcuts has appeared on the cover of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Before the war he also painted murals at Morley College and designed ceramics for Wedgwood.
During the Second World War he worked as an official war artist for the Admiralty. He died in September 1942 when the aircraft he was travelling in was lost off Iceland, becoming the first British official war artist to die on active service in the war. His legacy lies in twentieth-century English watercolour and in the influence he had on later wood engravers.