‘When I’m on good form,’ Edward Bawden told me, ‘I get to some point in the design and I laugh and talk — and if I’m laughing, it probably means the work is rather good.’ You can see his exuberance everywhere in the exhibition of his work at Dulwich Picture Gallery. It is a thoroughly jolly affair, but it also raises a delicate question: was Bawden (1903–89) really a serious artist?
He was certainly a tricky one to pigeon-hole. Bawden is, deservedly, one of the most popular of 20th-century Britishartists. But when one thinks of him, it is hard to bring a major work to mind — much harder than in the case of his mentor Paul Nash or fellow-student and friend Eric Ravilious.
From the beginning of his career, Bawden seemed determined to subvert the normal hierarchy of artistic forms. According to the art market at least, one-off sculptures and paintings are at the top of the list — ‘important’ and expensive.
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