An English Eye: James Ravilious
The Burton at Bideford

When: 06 October 2021 to 30 December 2021
Where: Main Gallery
Suitable for: Any age

'An English Eye' is a collection of photographs by renowned artist-photographer, James Ravilious. The collection provides an imporatn record of rural life in North Devon between 1972 and 1997, while also representing the best of James Ravilious' work as a whole.

The son of two artists - Eric Ravilious and Tizarh Woodward - James moved to Devon in 1972 where he tool up photography professionally, and where he was commissioned by the Beaford Archive project. The project aimed to capture the fast disappearing tratitional landscapes and practices of rural life in Devon. 

Working primarily in black and white, James' work was influenced by English landscape art and modernist photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Edwin Smith. He developed a distictive technique using older, uncoated lenses on his Leica rangefinder camera and a compensatory development process that gave his photographs a subtek, silvery quality.

Image: Olive Bennett with her Red Devon Cows, nr Beaford, Devon, 1979. Photograph by James Ravilious © Beaford Arts digitally scanned from a Beaford Archive negative.