Beaford Arts Reveal the Ravilious Archive Online and Revisit His Locations on Foot
A brand new website reveals 1700 images by North Devon social documentary photographer James Ravilious. The photographs have been digitally scanned from Ravilious' original negatives and are now online at www.beafordarchive.org.uk.
In 1972 photographer James Ravilious took on a commission from Beaford Arts’ founding director to “show north Devon people to themselves”.
Seventeen years and more than 70,000 images later Ravilious’ Beaford Archive had become what the Royal Photographic Society called “a unique body of work, unparalleled at least in this country for its scale and quality”.
To launch this exciting project, Beaford Arts has partnered with The Devon Wildlife Trust at Halsdon Nature Reserve, the site of many of James’s images. A new leaflet takes you past places which inspired some of James’ best-known photographs, and shows you some lesser-known images made in and around the same lanes. In the text, experts and locals reflect on what the images tell us about his routes more than thirty years later.
"He was an artist first and foremost... But what gave focus to his work was a determination to preserve an image of something he saw as dying under the influence of change. He was capturing, before it was lost, something precious.”
– Martyn Warren, rural studies academic and Chair of Beaford Arts
For more than a decade these images have been inaccessible, the negatives and contact sheets stored in the strongroom at the north Devon Records Office for safekeeping. With the support of Leader 4 Torridge and north Devon we can finally show these photographs to the communities that they were taken in.
There will be guided walks of the nature reserve on Saturday 10 September 2011, taking in the locations of sixteen of James’s images. Places can be booked on 01392 279244 (booking is essential as places are limited) and mini buses are available for those not wanting to walk, but eager to see the sites of James’s work.
In 1972 photographer James Ravilious took on a commission from Beaford Arts’ founding director to “show north Devon people to themselves”.
Seventeen years and more than 70,000 images later Ravilious’ Beaford Archive had become what the Royal Photographic Society called “a unique body of work, unparalleled at least in this country for its scale and quality”.
To launch this exciting project, Beaford Arts has partnered with The Devon Wildlife Trust at Halsdon Nature Reserve, the site of many of James’s images. A new leaflet takes you past places which inspired some of James’ best-known photographs, and shows you some lesser-known images made in and around the same lanes. In the text, experts and locals reflect on what the images tell us about his routes more than thirty years later.
"He was an artist first and foremost... But what gave focus to his work was a determination to preserve an image of something he saw as dying under the influence of change. He was capturing, before it was lost, something precious.”
– Martyn Warren, rural studies academic and Chair of Beaford Arts
For more than a decade these images have been inaccessible, the negatives and contact sheets stored in the strongroom at the north Devon Records Office for safekeeping. With the support of Leader 4 Torridge and north Devon we can finally show these photographs to the communities that they were taken in.
There will be guided walks of the nature reserve on Saturday 10 September 2011, taking in the locations of sixteen of James’s images. Places can be booked on 01392 279244 (booking is essential as places are limited) and mini buses are available for those not wanting to walk, but eager to see the sites of James’s work.
