
The Fry Art Gallery
Edward Bawden RA who, with his friend Eric Ravilious, discovered Bardfield a year before the arrival of Aldridge and dominated the scene for almost four decades, is represented by nearly 600 items. The Gallery has also acquired work by Ravilious and his wife Tirzah Garwood, and by those other artists who came to the village during the second world war – Michael Rothenstein RA, and his wife Duffy (now Duffy Ayers), Kenneth Rowntree, & George Chapman. The collection also includes prints and paintings by Bawden’s son Richard, and examples of the very varied work of artists who made their way to Bardfield in the 1950s – Marianne Straub, Audrey Cruddas, Sheila Robinson, Bernard Cheese and Walter Hoyle.
The Gallery was built in 1856 to house the collection of Francis Gibson, a local Quaker businessman, and the building passed by descent to the Fry family, from whom the Fry Art Gallery Society purchased it in 2015.
The Fry Art Gallery
Castle Street,
Saffron Walden,
Essex,
CB10 1BD
01799 513779
(24hrs answerphone)