Battle & Sussex

Ravilious Submarine celebrates the creation of a remarkable series of prints made by Eric Ravilious during the dark winter of 1940-41. Rare was the artist who descended into the depths to portray the gloomy, cramped interior of a naval submarine, yet it is not just the subject matter that makes the Submarine Series so powerful; the medium too is extraordinary. One of the most difficult and demanding of the printmaker’s arts, auto-lithography enjoyed a golden period in Europe between the wars, and in Britain this series represents a pinnacle of achievement. In this lavishly illustrated book, James Russell explores the sequence of events that gave us Ravilious the lithographer, a story that introduces Soviet revolutionaries in Moscow, Russian émigrés in Paris, Jewish immigrants in the East End of London and a host of visionary printers, publishers and designers. All ten lithographs in the Submarine Series are shown, each accompanied by a short descriptive essay which explores the scene depicted, introducing people and giving insights into the strange, dangerous life of a submariner during World War Two.