It’s not that people don’t know who she was. Tirzah Garwood (1908–1951) has always existed at an anecdotal level. She was a talented artist who happened to be Eric Ravilious’s wife, and sometimes the subject of her famous husband’s watercolors and prints. People have an idea of what she looked like. And there have been rare magical glimpses of her work. In 2010, an untitled small embroidery was shown at the Women of Great Bardfield Show, at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden, featuring a woman with a watering can in an idealized garden, so spellbindingly beautiful that once it has been seen it cannot be forgotten. But at Dulwich Picture Gallery we get to see the whole picture for the first time—a coming together of 80 works in the mediums of oil on canvas, woodblock print, embroidery, paper marbling, house portraits, illustration, scrapbooks, and patchwork. It is hoped that this exhibition will invite a new critical appraisal. No longer restricted by the artistic, social, and gender hierarchies of the day, or by Garwood’s own modesty, her uncanny art couldn’t have a better moment for re-emergence. —Sarah Hyde
The Arts Intel Report
Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious
Tirzah Garwood, Train Journey, 1929.
When
Until May 26, 2025
Where
Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Rd, Dulwich, London SE21 7AD, UK
Etc
Photos courtesy of Fleece Press/Dulwich Picture Gallery