Journal

Tirzah Garwood’s Embroideries

One of the highlights of the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery , which I visited with some Studio Club members this week, is being able to get up close to the two surviving examples of her needlework.  

These highly worked pictures were made around 1933.

Tirzah had married Eric Ravilious in 1930 and the following year they had moved to live part time with Edward Bawden and Charlotte Epton at Brick House in Great Barfield, Essex. 

By 1933 Ravilious had started an affair with the young artist Diana Low and was spending a lot of time away from home. When he was home he criticised Tirzah - “I was no fun and did nothing but housework, and I hadn’t any initiative . . . . I did try to give a little more time to being with him but the only result was an angry Charlotte who thought I wasn’t doing my fair share of housework, so I thought it wasn’t much use and any spare time I had was spent doing needlework pictures”

Tirzah’s autobiography - Long Live Great Bardfield - from which this quote comes - is dedicated to being upbeat about all trials in life. “I think I must have a cheerful constitution because I don’t seem to be put out by misfortunes as much as most people.  Possibly this is because I habitually am lucky enough to be completely absorbed  in drawing of writing so that I become quite unconscious of people or time when I am working.  So there is always that escape from reality”

It is quite clear that aside from the uncredited work she did for her husband - the backgrounds of his wood engravings, the murals at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe (where the photo would suggest she was leading the project), Tirzah was caught up in a web of domesticity.

Unlike the Bloomsbury artists hangout at Charleston, there were not a plethora of servants at Brick House and both Tirzah and Charlotte were constantly busy with the domestic chores of having so many visitors who arrived to spend time painting in the coutryside. 

Doing the same domestic chores that were often painted by their husbands . . . the husbands who were complaining that they had become dull through too much housework!

Shelling peas

Cleaning rugs . . . . .

And any creativity was pushed into small pockets of time.

Needlework is, of course, a perfect activity for that. It can be picked up and put down, it doesn’t need natural light in the same way as painting so can be done in the evenings.

Tirzah used designs that she had originally produced as wood engravings and then worked them in a close stitching based on the stitching of Victorian sailors. 

The group of Great Barfield artists admired all things Victorian - a style that was generally out of fashion - and loved to search through antique shops for highly decorative pieces like this kind of ship embroidery.

Instead of sails and flags she stitched runner beans and hoses

Fat marrows 

Brick walls and cabbages

a great plume of water.

The other surviving needlework picture is called Yawn and shows Tirzah in her bedroom - face in a wide yawn.

The stockinette that was used for the face has discoloured slightly

But the detailed stitching of the paraphernalia of a bedroom is a delight.

Kirby grips and brushes

open drawers and woven chair back

a dog in its basket.

Fancy fur trimmed slippers

Even the pictures on the wall and stripy wallpaper.

To me the delight in the detailing - the painstaking, time consuming, attention holding detail - of this stitching speaks loud.  I suspect that there were originally more than these two and I hope that they turn up.

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