James Ravilious and the Beaford Archive 1972 to 1989
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Serendipity played a leading role in James Ravilious’s appointment as the Beaford Centre’s full-time resident photographer in 1972. That year he and Robin, his wife, had had to leave their London flat as it was being demolished in advance of urban redevelopment. They chose to move to Devon where Robin had been given a small cottage on an estate that had long been in her family’s ownership. That cottage happened to be in the North Devon parish of Dolton, the same Dolton that had been identified as the subject for the Centre’s first village photographic survey. Dolton lay close to Beaford and the Raviliouses’ move to Devon came in the same year that Roger Deakins left his post as Beaford’s first resident photographer.
In London Ravilious had been working as an art tutor at Hammersmith College of Further Education so, on moving to Dolton, he approached John Lane about the possibility of teaching some drawing or wood engraving classes at the Beaford Centre. When Lane suggested that he might take some photographs for the Centre there was no looking back. Ravilious had little practical experience of photography but he had been deeply inspired by the exhibition of the work of the French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, that the Victoria & Albert Museum had put on in London in 1969.9 He was later to write:
‘It was the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson which opened my eyes to the potential of the photograph as a serious, and in his hands, profound comment on life. Under his influence I try always to take an honest picture, neither setting up the subject beforehand nor doctoring the print afterwards.’
Ravilious was a person of immense kindness, integrity and modesty. He overflowed with both creativity and enthusiasm and he was ever ready to share these precious gifts with others. Such was his friendly and unassuming approach to taking photographs that local people soon took him and his work to heart.
Making his way through the countryside (first by scooter, later in a three-wheeled Robin Reliant), he quickly began to build up a superb portfolio of contemporary photographs of life in the communities around him. Through his eyes the ordinariness of everyday life took on extraordinary and sometimes sublime meanings. Working with his trusted Leica camera and almost always in black and white (to him, green was too dominant a colour in the countryside), he developed his self-taught skills to create a body of work of the highest artistic quality. In doing so he set himself exacting standards. From an overall total of more than 75,000 of his photographs that have come to form the heart of the Beaford ‘New Archive’ he was to identify just 401 as being of ‘Best’ quality and only another 1,300 as worthy of being considered ‘Good’.
He also recognised the value of copying early photographs, reaching back to the nineteenth century, held by local families. This idea had been floated by John Lane in 1971 and some work had started in 1973. But it was an invitation to attend a meeting of the Dolton WI in 1975 to judge the ‘Most Interesting Old Photograph’ competition that spurred Ravilious forward on this front. As a result, the Beaford ‘Old Archive’ (as it is known) contains over 9,000 copies of old photographs, loaned by local people.10
Ravilious worked for Beaford for seventeen years, devoting his life to creating an outstanding archive, made up very largely of photographs taken very locally, within a ten-mile radius of the Centre. In the 1970s and 1980s many aspects of local life in rural North Devon seemed on the point of change and he had an eye for picturing not just what was at risk of disappearing but also new ways of living and working. For example, he portrayed the construction of the North Devon Link Road as it cut its swathe across the countryside. He was aware of the significance of his photographs as items of social and historical record. But his wonderful eye for a picture and his quick, quiet response to any situation he came across meant that he was capturing the ‘here and now’ as well as recording the passing of traditional ways of living. This is well demonstrated in his and Robin Ravilious’s In the Heart of the Country, published in 1980. For this book he selected 113 images that he had taken over the previous eight years with Robin writing their captions and an introductory essay. At the time of their publication many of these photographs would have had a ‘present-day’ feel about them but, forty-two years on, they echo with different, distanced resonances.
For many people Ravilious was the Archive during the years he worked for the Beaford Centre but he was aided by others. Robin Ravilious was always at his side, collaborating on projects, co-curating exhibitions and writing commentaries on his photographs for publications. George Tucker worked with him as assistant photographer between 1977 and 1982, developing the Beaford Old Archive by making copies of old photographs dating from between 1870 and 1940.11 Other people, such as local Beaford resident Richard Davin, helped with putting the records of the photographs in order. Cataloguing the collection was further progressed by a team working under the Manpower Services Commission’s temporary employment programme in the second half of the 1980s.
During these years, Ravilious developed a lasting friendship with Chris Chapman, another documentary photographer who had come to make his home in Devon – at Throwleigh on the north-east fringes of Dartmoor. By coincidence Chapman took his first photographs on Dartmoor in 1972, the same year that Ravilious arrived at Beaford. Like Ravilious in North Devon, he became rooted in his local community on Dartmoor. Fifty years on, he is still adding to his inspiring portfolio of photographs and films of life and landscape on and around the moor. (Chapman, 2000) The combination of both Chapman’s and Ravilious’s work represents a pair of complementary archives of rural photography which are surely without parallel in this country.12
John Lane’s original vision for the Beaford Centre not to be an ‘arty-ficial oasis’ but ‘to flood the area with experiences’ was one which Ravilious could very much identify with. He and Robin Ravilious masterminded a series of hugely popular Beaford exhibitions, showcasing his ‘New Archive’ photographs alongside the copied ‘Old Archive’ images that had been loaned by local people. In the 1980s these exhibitions had titles such as Time Off 1858-1950, Eighty Years On (photographs taken between 1900-1980) and Glorious North Devon. The North Devon Show, where as many as 1,600 people would come to see an exhibition, was a successful venue for these exhibitions which then toured around small communities in North Devon.
Ravilious’s photographs were also being exhibited outside Devon. As early as 1973 he was showing his work at the Museum of English Rural Life (Reading) and later venues included the Serpentine Gallery (London), the Photographers Gallery (London) and The Octagon, the Royal Photographic Society’s gallery in Bath. (Batten, 1989) Touring exhibitions included his series of orchard photographs taken during a very fruitful commission for the ‘Save Our Orchards’ campaign run by the environmental charity, Common Ground. (Common Ground, 2000)
Ravilious was allowed considerable freedom at Beaford to pursue his work. This gave him the flexibility to respond to opportunities as they unfolded around him but working relationships between him and the Centre could present challenges. John Lane had left the post of Centre Director shortly after Ravilious’s arrival and, although he continued to be involved as Chairman of its Council of Management over the period 1973-87, subsequent Centre Directors would not always give the Archive the priority it deserved.13 In the mid-1980s the suggestion was even made that all new photography for the Archive should be ceased and instead a writer in residence should be appointed to draw her/his inspiration from the photographs already in the Archive.
Funding was a recurring issue. Although the Centre’s overall budget grew significantly over the years, Ravilious was often working on a shoestring and he devoted many more hours to the Archive than he was contracted for. The Centre lacked a dedicated room for the Archive and he had to create his own darkroom, first in his cottage at Dolton and then in the house in the larger village of Chulmleigh where he and his family moved in 1987. A funding crisis at the Centre in 1980 had led to his appointment being reduced to a part-time one and eventually, in 1989, his role as the Beaford Centre’s resident photographer was brought to an end.