Eton Avenue from a Window
Born in Norfolk in 1870, William Ratcliffe studied at Manchester School of Art before working for nearly twenty years as a wall-paper designer. Encouraged by Harold Gilman – who he met upon moving to Letchworth around 1906 - to resume painting, he took up study at the Slade School in 1910, and began attending gatherings at Walter Richard Sickert’s studio, 19 Fitzroy Street.
One of sixteen members of the Camden Town Group formed in 1911, Ratcliffe exhibited in their three exhibitions held at the Carfax Gallery in Bury Street, St James, alongside the likes of Sickert, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner, and Robert Polhill Bevan. The Camden Town Group favoured everyday subjects from London life, and anti-naturalistic colouring to advance Modernism in Britain, resulting, however briefly, in a new and different style of painting in London.
London, in the run up to the First World War, had a very unique feel to it. The jarring blend of the traditional horse cabs and music halls which were being overrun by motor cars, the London Underground, and movie theatres, provided the distinct moment in time on which the Camden Town Group focussed their attention.
In 1911, Ratcliffe exhibited with the Allied Artists’ Association, and became a founding-member of the London Group in 1913, regularly contributing to their exhibitions until 1926. During this time he travelled to Sweden, and to Dieppe in northern France. His first substantial show took place at Roland, Browse and Delbanco in 1946 where he exhibited sixteen works. This was followed by a solo exhibition at the Letchworth Museum and Art Gallery in 1945.
Ratcliffe employed a bright palette and dry, thick paint application resulting in a recognisable, progressive style. At the first exhibition of the Camden Town Group, he was singled out as ‘a valiant and well-skilled Impressionist of the French type’ by a critic from the Telegraph.