Captain Eric Ravilious, WW2 art

London-born Eric Ravilious (1903-42) spent his early years in Eastbourne E. Sussex and won a scholarship to attend the Eastbourne School of Art in 1919. Later he enrolled at Royal College of Art London where he studied under Paul Nash, a War Artist in WW1. Later Ravilious worked as a painter, book illustrator and Wedgwood pottery designer. With war starting in 1939, he joined the Royal Observer Corps based in Castle Hedingham Essex. Ravilious was one of the first official War Artists to be appointed by War Artists Advisory Committee-WAAC in Dec 1939, and in 1940 as a Captain. Established by the Ministry of Information, WAAC was a government body commissioning artists to record WW2 events. From 1940-2, Ravilious produced dramatic water colours & drawings of ships, aircraft and coastal defences, 50 of them now in the Imperial War Museums/IWM. A warship in dock, 1940In Feb 1940, Ravilious was posted to Chatham Dockyard Kent to document the naval barracks’ factories & buildings. In A…