Tirzah Garwood (1908–1951)

Eileen Lucy "Tirzah" Garwood was born in Gillingham, Kent, England. Her parents, Lt. Colonel Frederick Scott Garwood and Ella Corry, moved the family frequently for her father's postings with the Royal Engineers. Her siblings gave her the nickname "Tirzah" in childhood. She was educated at West Hill School in Eastbourne and then attended the Eastbourne School of Art and studied at the Central School of Art in London. Tirzah’s early wood-engravings were exhibited at the 8th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wood-Engravers in 1927. The following year, she received her first commission, illustrating Granville Bantock's oratorio The Pilgrim's Progress. In 1930, she married Eric Ravilious, one of her teachers at the Eastbourne School of Art, with whom she would have three children. They moved to rural Essex, where together they they painted a mural in the tearoom at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe. Among the places they lived were Castle Hedingham near Great Bardfield. In 1941, Tirzah was diagnosed with breast cancer, and had a mastectomy in March 1942. Shortly before her surgery, her husband, now a war artist, was posted to Iceland, but his plane went missing over the North Atlantic and vanished without a trace.
In 1944, Tirzah moved with her children to Boydells Farm, near Wethersfield, Essex. She resumed her career as an artist, painting in oils and making collage models of structures such as schools and cottages. She remarried to Henry Swanzy, a radio producer, in 1946 and the family moved to Hampstead, London. She was again diagnosed with cancer in 1948, and died in 1951, just short of her 43rd birthday. Tirzah wrote her autobiography in 1942 while recovering from her mastectomy. It was originally intended only for her family, but eventually the book, entitled Long Live Great Bardfield, was edited by her daughter Anne Ullmann and published in 2012.