Edward Bawden's House

In December 1989, Olive Smith asked me if I would photograph the interior of Edward Bawden's house in Saffron Walden, Essex, following his death on November 21st, aged 87. I had never met Edward, but admired his style, his imagination and the skilled craftsmanship he brought to his artwork in a variety of visual media. I agreed instantly.

From the outside, his house was an unprepossessing Edwardian semi-detached in a quiet street in Saffron Walden, Essex, that gave little clue to the treasures within. Every room held visual delights - not least of which were the variety of wallpapers, some designed by Bawden - and the collection of prints, paintings and drawings, furniture and pottery that filled every available space.

I worked alone for most of the day, save for the presence of a retained housekeeper for part of the time. A weak December sun shone while I was there and I used this source of light whenever possible, supplementing it with some carefully placed studio flash units only when needed. I used Polaroid 669 to check the lighting and exposure for each composition. In order to record the spaces in colour as accurately as possible, I made one exposure of each scene on Fujicolor 100 with a colour reference card in shot. I also duplicated every shot in black & white, swapping the back of the Hassleblad after each exposure.

The pictures are a straightforward record of the house as it was when Bawden left it. I moved nothing more than a few centimeters and tried to show every aspect of a house that was both a home and studio.

The most poignant aspect of the day was recording the linocut that he was working on hours before he died. The knife still lay where he left it on an outline figure of Neptune sketched on whitened linoleum; the lino shavings still rested where they fell, next to the deep cuts he had guided the knife to make in the closing moments of his life.

A magnificent volume showing the entire collection of Bawden editioned prints has recently (2005) been assembled and published by Jeremy Greenwood of The Wood Lea Press.

Aesop’s fables: Daw in Borrowed Feathers colour linocut 1970
From Edward Bawden: Editioned Prints
by Jeremy Greenwood, The Wood Lea Press.