Eric William Ravilious (22 July 1903 – 2 September 1942) was a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver. He grew up in Sussex, and is particularly known for his watercolours of the South Downs, Castle Hedingham and other English landscapes, which examine English landscape and vernacular art with an off-kilter, modernist sensibility and clarity. He served as a war artist, and was the first British war artist to die on active service in World War II when the aircraft he was in was lost off Iceland.

Early life and education

Eric William Ravilious was born on 22 July 1903 in Churchfield Road, Acton, London, the son of Emma (née Ford) and Frank Ravilious. When he was young the family moved to Eastbourne in Sussex, where his parents ran an antiques shop.

Ravilious was educated at Eastbourne Municipal Secondary School for Boys, from September 1914 to December 1919. It was later renamed as Eastbourne Grammar School. In 1919 he won a scholarship to Eastbourne School of Art and in 1922 another to study at the Design School at the Royal College of Art. There, he became a close friend of Edward Bawden (his 1930 painting of Bawden at work is in the collection of the college) and, from 1924, studied under Paul Nash. Nash, an enthusiast for wood-engraving, encouraged him in the technique, and was impressed enough by his work to propose him for membership of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1925, and helped him to get commissions.