Painter and printmaker, born in Braintree, Essex, the son of Edward and Charlotte Bawden. He studied firstly at Chelsea School of Art, and at St. Martin’s School of Art with short spells during his National Service at Winchester School of Art. He later enrolled at the RCA where he honed his skills in the Engraving School. He was elected a member of the RE and of the Society of Designer Craftsmen and also acted as Chair of the Gainsborough’s House Print Workshop located in Sudbury, Suffolk. This gallery gave him a 60th birthday retrospective show in 1996. He has had over fifty one-man exhibitions at home and abroad and has exhibited with Bircham Gallery since its opening in 1988 and is a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Arts and was a founder-member of the Suffolk Group.
Bawden’s commissions include posters for the London Transport, a large mosaic for a swimming pool in Little Dunmow, murals for restaurants, book illustrations and editions of prints for CCA Galleries, Curwen Press and Editions Alecto. In 2005 Richard Bawden staged a solo exhibition at Chappel Galleries in Essex. Bawden is a Council member of the Royal Watercolour Society, an elected member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and a member of the New English Art Club. Examples of his work are in the collections of the HM. the Queen at Windsor Royal, Ashmolean Museum, Government Art Collection, Fry Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, Tate Gallery and the V&A.
