Raymond Teague Cowern (12 July 1913 – 1986) was a British painter and illustrator who was an accomplished draughtsman and was elected a full member of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

in 1968.

Biography

Cowern was born and educated in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

. He attended the Birmingham Central School of Arts and Crafts between 1929 and 1931 and then at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

until 1935. From 1937 to 1939 Cowern was the Rome Scholar in Engineering at the British School in Rome. He also worked as a draughtsman for an archaeological expedition, organised by the

Oriental Institute of Chicago The Orient is a term referring to the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of the term '' Occident'', which refers to the Western world. In English, it is largely a me ...

to Sakkarah in Egypt during the early 1930s. At the start of World War Two, Cowern joined the British Army and, after training in Norwich and at Farnham, served as an intelligence officer and then as a Field Security Officer with the 52nd Division in the Netherlands. Throughout his Army service, Cowern made numerous drawings of his experiences during training and in the Netherlands and Belgium. Several of these works were purchased by the

War Artists' Advisory Committee The War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artis ...

and are now held by the

Imperial War Museum The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civ ...

in London. Cowern also worked for the

Recording Britain The Pilgrim Trust is an independent charitable grant-making trust in the United Kingdom. The Trust's aims are to improve the life chances of the most vulnerable and preserve the best of the past for the public to enjoy. The Trust awards approxima ...

project during the War in 1940. For Recording Britain, he painted and etched images of historic buildings at risk of destruction in Suffolk, Worcestershire and Herefordshire. A number of these drawings are now in the collection of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

. After the war, Cowern worked continually as a painter and illustrator and for many years he lived in

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

. In 1947 he became a member of the

Royal Watercolour Society The Royal Watercolour Society is a British institution of painters working in watercolours. The Society is a centre of excellence for water-based media on paper, which allows for a diverse and interesting range of approaches to the medium of wa ...

. He was elected an Associate member of the

in 1957 and became a full member of the Academy in 1968. The Royal Academy hosted an exhibition of his work in 2004.

References

External links

*
Works by Cowern in the Victoria & Albert Museum collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowern, Raymond Teague 1913 births 1986 deaths 20th-century British printmakers 20th-century English male artists 20th-century English painters Alumni of the Royal College of Art Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands British Army personnel of World War II British illustrators British male painters Royal Academicians World War II artists 20th-century British war artists

Biography

References

Further reading

External links