17-551: The Great Bardfield Artists were a community of artists who lived in Great Bardfield , a village in north west Essex , England, during the middle years of the 20th century. The principal artists who lived there between 1930 and 1970 were John Aldridge RA , Edward Bawden , George Chapman , Stanley Clifford-Smith , Audrey Cruddas , Walter Hoyle , Eric Ravilious , Sheila Robinson , Michael Rothenstein , Kenneth Rowntree and Marianne Straub . Other artists associated with
34-522: A London Observer reporter that “people seem to prefer this domestic informality to galleries” . At these summer exhibitions, Aldridge exhibited his oils while Lucie exhibited her hand-knitted rugs. Although Aldridge's work was well-received, it seemed the most conservative of the Great Bardfield Artists as it possibly reflected the art scene of the 1920s and 1930s in Britain. The early 1960s saw
51-598: A 19th-century village lock-up, and the Gibraltar Mill , a windmill which has been converted to a house. Great Bardfield played an important role in the history of the oxlip ( Primula elatior ) which, in the UK, is a rare plant only found where Suffolk , Essex and Cambridgeshire meet. Originally it was thought that oxlips were cowslip-primrose hybrids but in 1842 Henry Doubleday and Charles Darwin conducted tests on plants collected from Great Bardfield and concluded that this
68-503: A comparatively wealthy military family. After attending Uppingham School in Rutland , Aldridge studied ‘ Greats ’ at Corpus Christi College at Oxford University and graduated in 1928 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. After finishing university, Aldridge settled in London, taught himself to paint and held his first mixed exhibition in 1931. Aldridge exhibited with the 'Seven and Five Society' at
85-596: A multi-city tour of England and Ireland during 1957 and 1958. The early 1960s saw the majority of the Great Bardfield artists leave the village. In 1985, the Fry Art Gallery was established in Saffron Walden with the expressed aim of highlighting the paintings, prints, wallpapers, books, fabrics and ceramics made by the Great Bardfield art community between 1930 and 1970. Many of the artists have had exhibitions at
102-579: Is a village garage sale. The Hundred Parishes John Aldridge (artist) John Arthur Malcolm Aldridge RA (26 July 1905 – 3 May 1983) was a British oil painter, draftsman, wallpaper designer , and art teacher in the United Kingdom . He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1954 and a Royal Academician (RA) in 1963. Born in Woolwich, England , Aldridge grew up in
119-525: Is said to have given Bardfield to Anne of Cleves as part of his divorce settlement and a number of buildings in the village are associated with Anne of Cleves, including the Grade II-listed Great Lodge and its associated Grade I-listed barn, now named after her. The 1,000-acre (4.0 km ) grounds include a Grade I-listed barn and a vineyard. Great Bardfield is home to the Bardfield Cage,
136-530: The Essex countryside and acquired 'Place House'. He quickly became a friend of his neighbour, Edward Bawden , himself a painter. The two artists collaborated in designing ‘Bardfield’ wallpapers during the later 1930s, which were distributed by Cole & Sons, a British wallpaper company. In 1941, Aldridge joined the British Intelligence Corps as an officer interpreting aerial photographs. After leaving
153-741: The Leicester Galleries from 1931 to 1933. In 1933, he presented his first one man-show at the Leicester Galleries in London and in 1934 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale art exhibition in Italy . During this period and for the rest of his life, Aldridge associated with the British poet Robert Graves and the poets and artists centred on him in the village of Deià , Mallorca . In 1933, at age 28, Aldridge, and his cats, moved to Great Bardfield in
170-414: The 1940s and 1950s were: John Aldridge , Edward Bawden , George Chapman, Stanley Clifford-Smith , Audrey Cruddas , Walter Hoyle , Michael Rothenstein , Eric Ravilious (who lodged with Bawden at Brick House ), Sheila Robinson and Marianne Straub . Other artists linked to the art community include Joan Glass , Duffy Ayers , Laurence Scarfe and the political cartoonist David Low . Each year there
187-519: The Bardfield art community fragment but Aldridge would remain in Place House until his death. After his 1970 divorce, Aldridge married Gretl Cameron, the widow of his poet friend Norman Cameron . In 1980, on Aldridge's 75th birthday, London's New Grafton Gallery held a retrospective on his work. He died in 1983, his wife Gretl having pre-deceased him a few months earlier. Some of his works are included in
SECTION 10
#1732868753846204-525: The Fry Art Gallery and elsewhere. Great Bardfield Great Bardfield is a large village in the Braintree district of Essex , England. It is approximately 9 mi (14 km) northwest of the town of Braintree , and approximately 12 mi (19 km) southeast of Saffron Walden . The village came to national attention during the 1950s as home to the Great Bardfield Artists . Henry VIII
221-602: The Great Bardfield Artists organised a series of large 'open house' exhibitions which attracted national and international press attention. Positive reviews and the novelty of viewing modernist art works in the artists' own homes led to thousands visiting the remote village during the summer exhibitions of 1954, 1955 and 1958. As well as these large shows the Great Bardfield Artists held exhibitions of their work in Cambridge (1956) and Bristol (1959). The artists also organised
238-462: The army in 1945, Aldridge returned to landscape painting. Although he was a skilled ' plein air ' painter, many works were produced in his studio at his home; his subjects were the Essex countryside, scenes from his many visits to Italy and to Mallorca, and his much-loved garden at Place House. Starting in 1949, Aldridge taught at the Slade School for Fine Arts of University College London , under
255-449: The group include Duffy Ayers , John Bolam , Bernard Cheese , Tirzah Garwood , Joan Glass , David Low and Laurence Scarfe . Great Bardfield Artists were diverse in style but shared a love for figurative art , making the group distinct from the better known St Ives School of artists in St Ives, Cornwall , who, after the war, were chiefly dominated by abstractionists. During the 1950s
272-438: The realist painter Sir William Coldstream .After that he became very popular. At the same time, other artists started moving to Great Bardfield, making the village a dynamic centre for the visual arts. Aldridge and his wife Cecelia Lucie Leeds Aldridge (née Saunders, a divorcee) frequently opened Place House for summer exhibitions in the village. These well-organised shows attracted thousands of art lovers. In 1955, Aldridge told
289-507: Was not so. For a while the plant was known as the Bardfield Oxlip. The common cowslip-primrose hybrid is known as the false oxlip ( Primula × polyantha ). Bardfield was the home of many important twentieth-century English artists who hosted a series of important 'open house' exhibitions in the village during the 1950s. These exhibitions garnered national press attention and attracted thousands of visitors. The Great Bardfield Artists of
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