Holland
Creator
Julian Trevelyan
Title
Holland
Date
1974
Description
Julian Trevelyan
Color Intaglio Print
Harvey373D
Color Intaglio Print
Harvey373D
Subject
Abstract Landscape
Identifier
TRE.10.1078
MAF-84.89.PR
MAF-84.89.PR
Format
Framed, Light Wood
Coverage
Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988)
Julian Trevelyan was a prolific London-based printmaker and painter who was prolific as an artist, educator and writer, leaving behind more than 400 prints.
Trevelyan first attended Cambridge University for English Literature, where he found a love for the avant-garde and Surrealist movements. He left Cambridge in 1931 before completing his degree to pursue fine art in Paris. He began a career in etching after learning the process from Atelier 17, a workshop in S.W. Hayter’s Engraving School. At this time, he was working in the circles of Max Ernst, Giacometti, Andre Masson, Oskar Kokoschka, Miro, and Picasso, and lived close by to Alexander Calder and Anthony Gross. Trevelyan became a member of the English Surrealist Group and exhibited two works from his Dream Cities Series at the International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936. He later resigned from the London Surrealist Group in 1939.
In 1935, he moved back to London and bought Durhan Wharf, a collection of small warehouses that worked as his home and artist studio. Trevelyan married the potter Ursula Darwin, the great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin in 1934. They had a son in 1943 named Philip who works as a filmmaker today. He and Ursula got divorced in the late 40s and he later remarried the painter Mary Fedden in 1951.
In the late 1930s, Trevelyan was invited to take part in the Mass Observation project, which aimed to record the routines and rituals of everyday life in Britain using volunteer observers, diarists, and participants. During World War II, Trevelyan served as a Camouflage Officer, helping to better deceive enemy forces in desert landscapes in Africa and India. He left the army in 1942 after a breakdown and returned to Durham Wharf.
Trevelyan was an etching and art history professor at the Chelsea School of Art from 1950-55. He became the Head of the Etching Department at the Royal College of Art from 1955-63. He taught well-known artists, David Hockney, Ron Kitaj and Jorman Ackroyd. In 1957, Trevelyan wrote a book called Indigo Days. In 1986, Trevelyan was awarded Royal Academician Fellowship at the Royal College of Art, and is a founding member of the Printmakers’ Council in London. Today the Bohun Gallery handles the artist’s estate and 105 of his artworks are now held in the Tate Gallery Collection.
As a serious student of Surrealism, Trevelyan explored automatism, disassociation, and recording dreams in his works. His work can be identified through his childlike touch by simplifying forms of complicated structures or scenes. He later moved to more representational work, depicting harbor scenes, architecture, and figures moving through landscapes. His continued use of simple and stylized depiction lends his work a magical air that harks back to his surreal and abstract compositions of the early 1930s. His work also influenced his second wife, Mary Fedden, who mainly worked in still lives. They worked together in the same studio until his death. Her work frequently included fragments of his etchings, which she used in her collages.
Julian Trevelyan was a prolific London-based printmaker and painter who was prolific as an artist, educator and writer, leaving behind more than 400 prints.
Trevelyan first attended Cambridge University for English Literature, where he found a love for the avant-garde and Surrealist movements. He left Cambridge in 1931 before completing his degree to pursue fine art in Paris. He began a career in etching after learning the process from Atelier 17, a workshop in S.W. Hayter’s Engraving School. At this time, he was working in the circles of Max Ernst, Giacometti, Andre Masson, Oskar Kokoschka, Miro, and Picasso, and lived close by to Alexander Calder and Anthony Gross. Trevelyan became a member of the English Surrealist Group and exhibited two works from his Dream Cities Series at the International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936. He later resigned from the London Surrealist Group in 1939.
In 1935, he moved back to London and bought Durhan Wharf, a collection of small warehouses that worked as his home and artist studio. Trevelyan married the potter Ursula Darwin, the great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin in 1934. They had a son in 1943 named Philip who works as a filmmaker today. He and Ursula got divorced in the late 40s and he later remarried the painter Mary Fedden in 1951.
In the late 1930s, Trevelyan was invited to take part in the Mass Observation project, which aimed to record the routines and rituals of everyday life in Britain using volunteer observers, diarists, and participants. During World War II, Trevelyan served as a Camouflage Officer, helping to better deceive enemy forces in desert landscapes in Africa and India. He left the army in 1942 after a breakdown and returned to Durham Wharf.
Trevelyan was an etching and art history professor at the Chelsea School of Art from 1950-55. He became the Head of the Etching Department at the Royal College of Art from 1955-63. He taught well-known artists, David Hockney, Ron Kitaj and Jorman Ackroyd. In 1957, Trevelyan wrote a book called Indigo Days. In 1986, Trevelyan was awarded Royal Academician Fellowship at the Royal College of Art, and is a founding member of the Printmakers’ Council in London. Today the Bohun Gallery handles the artist’s estate and 105 of his artworks are now held in the Tate Gallery Collection.
As a serious student of Surrealism, Trevelyan explored automatism, disassociation, and recording dreams in his works. His work can be identified through his childlike touch by simplifying forms of complicated structures or scenes. He later moved to more representational work, depicting harbor scenes, architecture, and figures moving through landscapes. His continued use of simple and stylized depiction lends his work a magical air that harks back to his surreal and abstract compositions of the early 1930s. His work also influenced his second wife, Mary Fedden, who mainly worked in still lives. They worked together in the same studio until his death. Her work frequently included fragments of his etchings, which she used in her collages.
Source
Gift of Martin Ackerman Foundation
Physical Dimensions
19"x13.75" Image (Paper: 31"x23")
Original Format
Print-Intaglio
Files
Collection
Citation
Julian Trevelyan, “Holland,” Furlong Gallery, accessed November 3, 2026, https://www.furlonggallery.net/items/show/144.