Key artists and exhibits
The following are particularly well represented within the Collection: Edward Bawden, John Aldridge, Bernard Cheese, Marianne Straub, Kenneth Rowntree, Michael Rothenstein, Edwin Smith as an artist and Sheila Robinson. ; 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 400 items. The Gallery lias 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, and Sydney Clifford-Smith. The collection is additionally enhanced by a number of prints and paintings by Bawden's son Richard, and by 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. ; Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde spent a brief time at nearby Tilty during the same period, and are also represented, together with several other interesting artists associated with the area, among them John Norris Wood, Micliael Ayrton, Isabel Lambert, and Tom Deakins. More recently has come John Bellany, RA. In 1970 Edward Bawden moved to Saffron Walden, where he lived until his death in 1989. Also represented in the Collection are Olive Cook, Edwin Smith, Chloe Cheese, John Bolam, Paul Beck, David Myerscough-Jones and Olga Lehmann, all of whom are associated with Saffron Walden. ;