In the Footsteps of Ravilious

28 January 2023

The second instalment of a project by Robert Littleford and Rachael Adams, deep mapping the area in and around Newhaven.

For this show Robert considered the tracks of the Downs (Glynde, Firle, Cuckmere): landscapes made so familiar over 80 years ago by Eric Ravilious.

Chalk covered flints, large scale paintings, geological elements.

Rachael considered how integral the railway tracks are to Newhaven – sliding in and out of the port, running from Seaford to Lewes – providing a constant arterial and rhythmic backdrop, to and fro, linking the past and the present.

Ravilious married fellow artist Tirzah Garwood in 1930. In a perfect world, she too would be a household name – and acknowledged as one of the most original and distinctive figures of twentieth century British art – instead, as a mother of three children and wife of Eric, she ceased to produce her own work. 

In 1942 she became seriously ill and it was while she was recovering from an emergency mastectomy that she learned Ravilious – as a War Artist – had been lost at sea.

Rachael’s soundscape accompanied a film.