Draws together the best of Bawden's pieces of work.

This book reveals the wonderful world of painter and illustrator Edward Bawden. Some pages are beautiful, some instructive and some baffling, but together they give us an insight into the mind of one of the 20 century's most reclusive and English of artists.

From Art galleries, Bowler hats, and Cockneys to Weather, Umbrellas, and Zebra crossings, an alphabetical, pocket-sized tour through 1950s London First published in 1953, the year that saw thousands descend on London to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, London A to Z is a lexicon of the city’s curiosities, from the Achilles statue in Hyde Park “erected by the women of England to honor (if not to resemble) the Duke of Wellington,” via greyhound racing, lost property offices, and umbrellas, to zebra crossings (relative newcomers to London in 1953). Adorned throughout with Edward Bawden’s beautiful and distinctive illustrations, this charmingly idiosyncratic guide brings to life with a dry humor the London and Londoners of the day. More than sixty years have passed since the volume was first published and while many sights are now lost to time, readers may be surprised to find how this vintage guide continues to capture London’s quirks. A new introduction places the original publication in context, drawing the reader into 1950s London via a brief tour of the book’s most curious, nostalgic, and whimsical entries.

This book draws on Edward Bawden's delightful illustrations, posters and linocuts of Kew Gardens made over 60 years. It presents a light-hearted social history of Kew, peopled with the many Hanoverian Kings, Queens and Princes who resided there, as well as courtiers such as the 3rd Earl of Bute, Joseph Banks Fulke Greville and their proteges including William Chambers, William Aiton, Fanny Burney and Sir William Hooker. Alongside Bawden's posters and linocuts, the book is illustrated with the contemporary caricatures of Thomas Rowlandson, George Cruikshank and James Gillray as well as botanical illustrations by Franz Bauer, Evelyn Dunbar and others. The book also reproduces in full Bawden's previously unpublished manuscript guide to Kew Gardens, drawn by the artist when he was just 19, and the redrawn illustrations and maps in Robert Herring's 1930 book Adam and Evelyn at Kew.

This comprehensive survey of the career of Edward Bawden (1903-89) accompanied a major exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery and brings together his most significant work in watercolour, printmaking, design and illustration. Bawden began his career in the 1920s as a precociously talented designer and illustrator, and he successfully reinvented himself time and again as the decades passed while always retaining a distinctive freshness, humour and humanity in his work. The book explores in depth the most significant creative periods of Bawden's life and is fully illustrated throughout.

"This book tells the story of Great Bardfield and its artists, and their famous 'open house' exhibitions, showing how the village and neighbouring landscape nurtured a distinctive style of art, design and illustration from the 1930s to the 1970s and beyond."--Jacket.