Picture of the Week No.33 - Edward Bawden

We have been so busy putting up the ‘R100 & R101 Airships at Cardington exhibition’ and admiring our new Paul Catherall prints that we have completely neglected our picture of the week duties! As an apology I offer up Edward Bawden’s ‘The Pagoda, Kew Gardens’ for your viewing pleasure. Bawden was fascinated with Kew Gardens, and like Brighton, he returned to it as a subject throughout his career. What you won’t be able to see from this image is the scale of the picture, it’s over a meter tall which caused Bawden’s assistant to be print it in a unique way…. by stomping on it with his feet. This however wasn’t the strangest way to produce linocuts, some of the sample wallpapers Bawden produced with John Aldrich in the 1930’s were printed by driving a Rolls Royce over the blocks. VP

EDWARD BAWDEN, C.B.E., R.A.

(1903-1989)
The Pagoda, Kew Gardens
1963

12 colour linocut, 115 x 66.7 cm
inscribed: The Pagoda, Kew 4/50 Edward Bawden
P.757
From his student days at the R.C.A., the landscaping, flora and architecture at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew had fascinated Bawden. He would spend many warm weekends at Kew making numerous sketches. Various aspects of the Gardens were to feature throughout is work from the 1920s, through the advertising material of the 1930s to the large linocuts of the 1960s.
CB
PROVENANCE: Bequeathed by the artist to the Gallery, given via The Fine Art Society, August 1990