Eileen 'Tirzah' Ravilious (née Garwood)

(Gillingham 1908-1951 Colchester)

The Crocodile, 1929  *SOLD*

wood engraving

inscribed verso

image 16.5 x 12.4 cm.

sheet 29.7 x 21 cm.

'The Crocodile' was commissioned for a never-completed calendar, for publication by Curwen Press. 

Tirzah met her husband Eric Ravilious at Eastbourne Art School, where he was her teacher, and the couple were married in 1930. Her talent and eye for woodcuts arguably exerted a greater influence on her husband, than the other way round.

She first exhibited with the Redfern Gallery in 1927, where her work was received to great critical acclaim. She was commissioned by the BBC to illustrate Granville Bantock's 'The Pilgrim's Progress in 1928, and the resulting works were exhibited by the Society for Education in Art. 

With the death of Ravilious came great heart-ache and ill health, but Tirzah remarried in 1946, only to die of cancer in 1951. Hers was a short and tragic life in many respects but she was sufficiently aware of its importance to write an autobigraphy in 1942 - 'Long Live Great Bardfield & Love to You All', published posthumously in 2012.