Welcome to Sworders’ East Anglian Artist Directory, where you will find biographical information on artists whose work has been sold by Sworders and on some whose work we have yet to offer. Over the last 200 years, East Anglia has probably been home to more significant artists than any other region of the UK with the exception of St Ives and Newlyn on the southern tip of Cornwall.
Two artist’s colonies, in particular, have seen a recent resurgence of interest in their work, namely at Great Bardfield, including the work of Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden and the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, established by Cedric Morris at Benton End near Hadleigh in Suffolk.
The most famous East Anglian Artist of the 20th century was Henry Moore, who lived and worked no more than ten miles from our Auction Rooms.
Sworders have an established a nationwide reputation for successfully selling works by East Anglian artists and currently hold the world record price for a work sold at auction by Cedric Morris. We are thus uniquely placed to appraise, value and successfully sell works by these artists.
Born in 1905 in Woolwich, Aldridge lived in Great Bardfield from 1933 until his death in 1983. He shared, with Edward Bawden, a passion for gardening. The creation of the garden at Place House in Great Bardfield was one of his greatest achievements, and it features frequently in his paintings, as does English landscape as a whole....
Based in Norwich, Michael Andrews was inspired as a youth by the works of Cotman and Crome, amongst other East Anglian masters. His Methodist father supported his desire to paint and allowed him to attend part-time oil painting classes at Norwich School of Art whilst he completed his education....
Duffy Ayers trained at the Central School of Art in London. She married Michael Rothenstein and lived in Great Bardfield for approximately twelve years from 1941. She took a break from her work to raise her family,....
Ayrton established himself as an energetic and prolific artist whose work was cut short by his death aged 54. He was a versatile and respected painter, sculptor, etcher, illustrator, theatre designer, film director, radio broadcaster, art critic and novelist....
Stephen John Batchelder was born in Bolton. His father was a travelling showman from Norwich, the young Batchelder helped to decorate scenery for his diorama. The family moved to Preston when he was around 10 years old, which enabled him to study drawing for the first time. On returning to Norfolk he worked for a photographer in Norwich, however, his desire to return to drawing led him to enrol at the Yarmouth College of Art.
Bawden is, perhaps, the key artist of the North West Essex/Great Bardfield group. Though of Cornish ancestry, he was born in Braintree and was firmly rooted in the Essex countryside. Educated at the Friends School in Saffron Walden,....
Son of Edward and Charlotte Bawden, Richard, like his father, was born near Braintree. He studied at Chelsea and St Martin’s School of Art, Winchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art,....
Born in Kent, Beck studied at the Gravesend School of Art and the Royal College of Art, where fellow students included David Gentleman and Len Deighton. After graduating, he began design work for London advertising agencies, followed by a full-time lectureship of the Croydon College of Art....
Harry Becker was born in Colchester to a German doctor father, he attended the Royal Academy Schools at Antwerp and the Paris studio of portrait painter Carolus Duran. France provided inspiration in the form of Degas and the Impressionists, whom Becker greatly admired. He continued to paint in a style learnt from Duran on his return to Essex, until he moved to London in 1894....
The son of a Scottish fisherman, his roots were an important factor in his work, often featuring fishermen, fishing boats, fish, gulls and dramas at sea. He lived near Saffron Walden from 1990 until his death....
Elinor Bellingham-Smith came to Suffolk at the age of 51 following the breakdown of her marriage to painter Rodrigo Moynihan. She lived her married life in London and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art.....
Born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, Bolam originally studied furniture design at High Wycombe School of Art, and a strong family commitment to the values and beliefs of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement....
Born in Wandsworth, he entered Clapham School of Art, aged 17, before being conscripted into the army at the outbreak of the war, on demobilisation he studied at the Royal College of Art, under Carel Weight and Ruskinspear...
Born in London, he studied at the Byam Shaw School, before, in 1939, enrolling at the East Anglian School of Art and Drawing, run by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, where fellow students included Lucien Freud and his future wife, Barbara Gilligan...
Chapman was born in East Ham, London, studied at Gravesend School of Art, the Slade and the Royal College of Art. He lived in Great Bardfield from 1950–1960.
A chance visit to the Rhondda Valley in 1953 led to a transformation in his work,....
Born in Sydenham in 1925, he studied at Beckenham School of Art. After four years serving in the Army in the Second World War, he was finally able to return to the Royal College of Art in 1947, where he was taught by Edward Bawden and John Nash....
Born in 1952, the daughter of Bernard and Sheila Cheese (Robinson), Chloe spent her early years in Great Bardfield where she spent much time at Brick House with Edward and Charlotte Bawden....
Sir George Clausen grew up in London where he was exposed to the arts from by his artist and sculptor parents. He studied at the National Art School in South Kensington and progressed to work in the studio of Edwin Long RA. During his time as a student he visited Belgium and Holland and developed a love for the Dutch Masters....
Prunella Clough was born in London and grew to know and love the Suffolk coast during childhood holidays in Southwold. She studied part time at the Chelsea School of Art where she took classes from Henry Moore. During the war she was a cartographer.....
Peter Coker was born in London in 1926, to a businessman father and an art-loving mother. His artistic flair was discouraged; he was instead pressed to pursue a career in business. He eventually overcame this and took evening classes at St Martin's School of Art where he became full time at the age of 17.....
John Constable was born in the village of East Bergholt on the River Stour in Suffolk. His father was a corn merchant , Constable was expected to one day take over the family business. Largely self- taught, the young Constable took himself on sketching trips and fell in love with the beauty of the East Anglian countryside.....
Born in Cambridge in 1912, Olive Cook read Modern Languages at Newnham and began work for publisher, Chatto and Windus, as a typographer. She then spent eight years at the National Gallery, whilst her painting tuition came from Cedric Morris at the East Anglian School of Art and Design....
Born in Johannesburg and educated in England at the Royal Academy Schools, Cruddas enjoyed a successful career as a theatre designer, principally for the Old Vic, Royal Shakespeare Company and Covent Garden....
Rowland Fisher did not fully indulge his love of art until his retirement as a sawmill manager in 1950. He grew up Gorleston, Norfolk, the son and grandson of mariners. The influence of his father instilled in him a deep fascination with the sea, without formal training he drew and painted throughout his life.....
Elisabeth Frink grew up in Little Thurlow, Suffolk she greatly appreciated the wildlife of the area when she was a child and noted the strong military presence, East Anglia was dotted with airfields and army camps during the war. She witnessed planes returning to base in flames and German machine-gun fire overhead......
William Fraser Garden was one of the 'Frasers of Huntingdonshire' a family of painters whose subject matter was the Fens and waterways around Huntingdon. He had two artist brothers together with nephews and sisters who also painted......
Tirzah Garwood grew up in Eastbourne where she attended the local art school; here she met and later married, in 1930, a teacher, Eric Ravilious. Before her marriage, she produced a favourably reviewed series of engravings....
Born in Hartlepool, County Durham, Margaret determined to become an artist following a childhood meeting with Patrick Heron. She won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art between 1944 and 1947, where she met her husband to be, Lionel Bulmer...
Born in Sudbury, Maggi Hambling was raised in Hadleigh and studied at Benton End under Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines from age of 15. She developed a good relationship with Lett-Haines, whom she greatly admired, he became something of a mentor to her. She later studied at the Ipswich School of Art followed by The Slade School of Fine Art.
Acclaimed Norfolk watercolourist Charles Harmony Harrison was born in a deprived area of Yarmouth. From a young age he developed a love of nature and he used to make sketches during childhood day-trips around the Broads. He became an apprentice at a sign-writer's , which gave him his first lessons in colour mixing and paint he studied at the Norwich School of Artists in his spare time and was especially inspired by the works of Crome and Cotman.....
Lucy Harwood was a keen student at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing run by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines. She was born at Belstead Hall near Ipswich and enjoyed a comfortable upbringing, where she showed a talent for music. Unfortunately a tragic mistake during an operation led to her partial paralysis obliging her to relinquish her ambition to be a pianist and focus instead on painting.
Born in Lancashire, Hoyle studied at Beckenham School of Art and the Royal College of Art, where his studies were interrupted by the Second World War. On leaving the Army in 1947, he returned to the RCA, where he was greatly influenced by his tutor, Edward Bawden....
Born in Chile of a French father and a Scots mother, Lehmann was initially educated by an English governess and then sent to an American college in Santiago, later winning a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art in London....
Born in Yorkshire, Henry Moore first experienced East Anglian life when his family moved to Wighton, Norfolk, in 1922 in an attempt to improve his father's health. Moore attended the Royal College of Art but spent his holidays in Wighton where he collected flints and carved in the yard of his sister's schoolhouse...
A lifelong interest in botany began during Morley's childhood spent partly on an estate in Kent, where his grandfather was a gardener. He studied at Beckenham School of Art alongside David Inshaw and developed an interest in Sir Peter Blake and the Brotherhood of Ruralists....
Cedric Morris was born in South Wales, he was largely a self-taught artist who explored abstraction and surrealism in Cornwall after he was assessed as medically unfit to serve in the First World War. During his time in Cornwall he met Arthur Lett-Haines, who became his lifelong partner....
Mary Newcomb is known for her naive, primitive style of painting, depicting scenes of village life and community. Born Mary Slatford in North London, her family moved to rural Wiltshire when she was a child....
Born in Suffolk, the daughter of artist Mary Newcomb, she attended Norwich School of Art from 1972 and later a print-making course at Wimbledon School of Art...
Granddaughter of Charles Darwin, Gwendolen Mary Darwin was born into an academic family in Cambridge. She took painting classes at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1908 and taught herself the art of wood engraving with little other guidance than the inspiration of Georgian engraver Thomas Bewick.....
Along with Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious is one of the most widely celebrated English artists of the 20th century and a great scion of the Bardfield and North West Essex group....
Born in Nottinghamshire, Robinson studied at the Nottingham School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, under her influential tutor, Edward Bawden. She, together with Walter Hoyle, assisted Bawden with his large mural for the 1951 Festival of Britain....
Born in Nottinghamshire, Robinson studied at the Nottingham School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, under her influential tutor, Edward Bawden. She, together with Walter Hoyle, assisted Bawden with his large mural for the 1951 Festival of Britain....
Son of artist and art historian, Sir William Rothenstein, Michael is often regarded as the most avant-garde of the Great Bardfield artists. He pioneered the use of found objects, anything that could be coated in ink for relief painting....
Trained as an architect, Smith became internationally known as a photographer contributing to some 40 volumes published in England, the USA and Continental Europe. He collaborated with his wife, Olive Cook, on many of these....
Born and educated around Zurich, Straub continued her studies in England at Bradford Technical College. She became a textile designer of note, with her work appearing in many homes and public places throughout the 20th century....
Vaughan had no formal art training, but became a significant figure in the British art world after the Second World War, particularly in the 1950s and ‘60s as part of a network of artists including Graham Sutherland and John Minton....
From 1937-1940 she studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham, where she was taught by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines...
Wood studied painting and illustration at Goldsmiths College, London and later at the Royal College of Art, where he won a silver medal for zoological drawing. It is as an illustrator and printmaker of natural history that he became known....