Eric Ravilious Prints: ‘The Lifeboat’, watercolour, 1938.

Eric Ravilious Prints: ‘The Lifeboat’, watercolour, 1938.

One of Eric Ravilious’ more immediately striking images, and a meditation in blue, with an intriguing ‘choppy’ sky mirrored in the waves below.

This is a lively painting of a day on Aldburgh beach, depicting the crew of the lifeboat Abdy Beauclerk performing maintenance and preparing the vessel should it be needed. A couple of years after this painting was completed, the Abdy Beauclerk took part in the Dunkirk Evacuation.

There’s a short film about the Abdy Beauclerk, and its sister vessel, the Lucy Lavers, over at Vimeo.

Eric Ravilious (22 July 1903 – 2 September 1942) was an exceptional watercolourist, wood engraver and designer. He grew up in the shadow of the Sussex Downs in the coastal town of Eastbourne, the surrounding landscape of which heavily influenced many of his best known works. His instantly recognisable style, palette and choice of subject have an almost universal appeal, a blend which has increased in popularity with the passing of time, particularly in the first two decades of the 21st century.