One of Britain’s foremost watercolour painters, draughtsmen and printmakers, Stanley Roy Badmin (1906-1989) defined the way that Britain looked at itself for more than a generation.

His precise yet poetic landscapes not only graced the walls of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours but also illustrated such classic publications as Puffin Picture Books and the Shell Guides, and appeared in a range of formats from posters for transport companies to greetings cards for Royles. Together, his career takes the viewer on a journey across the British countryside, among trees and shrubs and into villages and towns.

The exhibition surveys the full range of his achievement, and includes:

  • Some of his finest exhibition watercolours depicting scenes of England across the seasons, from the Thames at Radcot, Oxfordshire, in early May, to Bignor Hill, Sussex in winter sunshine;

  • Major examples of the work that he produced on his most important trip abroad, a tour of America in 1935, commissioned by the magazine, Fortune;

  • The variety of his work as an illustrator, from the quiet stillness of the images of the early Highways and Byways of Essex (1939) to the highly informative drawings for one of his three Puffin Picture Books, Farm Crops in Britain (1955);

  • Almost a complete display of his significant output as a printmaker, including rare and newly discovered etchings and woodcuts.

Chris Beetles has been the leading authority on S R Badmin since as early as 1985. In that year, he published his major monograph, S R Badmin and the English Landscape, with its pioneering catalogue raisonné of prints, and mounted a large-scale retrospective exhibition at his Ryder Street Gallery.

The new exhibition celebrates the 30th anniversary of that relationship, and provides a new generation with the opportunity to become acquainted with this quintessentially English artist.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 48-page catalogue, which contains over 100 full colour and black & white images, a second edition of Chris Beetles’ catalogue raisonné of the prints, and a newly-researched chronology, bibliography and list of exhibitions. The catalogue is available from the gallery at £10 + p&p.