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 on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

in 1968.

Biography

Cowern was born and educated in Birmingham. He attended the Birmingham Central School of Arts and Crafts between 1929 and 1931 and then at the Royal College of Art 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 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 and are now held by the

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

in London. Cowern also worked for the

Recording Britain The Pilgrim Trust is a national grant-making trust in the United Kingdom. It is based in London and is a registered charity under English law. It was founded in 1930 with a two million pound grant by Edward Harkness, an American philanthropist. T ...

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

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. In 1947 he became a member of the Royal Watercolour Society. 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

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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 British war artists Royal Academicians World War II artists

Biography

References

Further reading

External links