Chalk Figure Near Weymouth Print by Eric Ravilious
Ravillious was unarguably one of the greatest watercolourist painters of the 20th Century, best-loved for his paintings of famous English landmarks like the Westbury Horse, Beachy Head and the Long Man of Wilmington in his native Sussex. He was a chronicler of mid-century British life, whose subject matter is now seen as the epitome of traditional Englishness – a cream tea on the lawn, cricket on the green, and keeping the home fires burning through the dark days of the second world war.
 
Ravilious painted this chalk horse in Weymouth, Dorset on a whistle-stop tour of chalk figures in December 1939 prior to his appointment as an official war artist. ‘Chalk Figure Near Weymouth’, today housed in the National Gallery of Canada, is regarded as one of the artist’s most iconic paintings. Other watercolours in the series included 'Wilmington Giant' in Sussex and 'Westbury Horse' in Wiltshire. He also painted the 'Cerne Abbas Giant' around this time.