Eric Ravilious: The Cerne Abbas Giant, 1939

Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver. He grew up in Sussex, and is particularly known for his watercolours of the South Downs. The countryside of Sussex and the Essex were his main subjects. As he disliked both bright sunlight and the colour green he preferred to paint under grey or cloudy skies, and in winter. Ravilious was a brilliant watercolourist, lithographer and designer, but above all was a wood engraver. It was in this medium that he first found artistic expression in the early 1920s, and over the next two decades produced some of the finest engravings of the age.

As well as woodcuts, he engraved more than four hundred illustrations and drew over forty lithographic designs for books and publications during his lifetime. In 1936 he was invited by Wedgwood to make designs for ceramics, many of which were used on commemorative mugs for the coronations of Edward V111, later revised for the coronation of George V1, and again reworked for Elizabeth 11 in 1953.  He also undertook glass designs for Stuart Crystal, graphic advertisements for London Transport and furniture work for Dunbar Hay. Ravilious was appointed as an official war artist in December 1939, and was given the rank of Honorary Captain in the Royal Marines and assigned to the Admiralty. He died, at the age of 39, when the aircraft he was on was lost off Iceland in 1942.

The Cerne Abbas Giant is a hill figure near the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset. Like many other hill figures it is outlined by shallow trenches cut in the turf and backfilled with chalk rubble, and has become an important part of local culture and folklore, which often associates it with fertility. It is one of England's best-known hill figures and is listed as a scheduled monument.

the above text appears on the back of the card
HC-1276: card size 7" x 5" (178mm x 127mm)