Clifford Ellis

Clifford Wilson Ellis (1907-1985) was a British printmaker, painter, designer and art teacher. Ellis is notable both for the work he did for the Recording Britain project during the Second World War and for his role in the development of art teaching.

Ellis was born in Bognor Regis in Sussex. After a year at Saint Martin's School of Art, he studied illustration at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London between 1924 and 1927. Ellis then spent a year taking a post-graduate teacher training course before gaining a diploma in the history of art from the University of London. In 1928, Ellis returned to Regent Street Polytechnic as a teacher and continued to teach there until 1936. During this period he married his wife, Rosemary Ellis (1910-1998), and the couple began working together on a number of artistic projects and commissions. Their work included posters for London Transport, the General Post Office and Shell-Mex plus several designs for book covers, most notably for the long-running New Naturalist series published by Collins. They also produced poster designs for the Empire Marketing Board and also lithographs for J. Lyons & Co..

In 1936, Ellis took a teaching post at Bath Technical College and in 1937 he was appointed Head of the Bath School of Art. During World War II, Ellis oversaw the move of the School of Art to new premises twice, first when the School's original premises were required for military use and on a second occasion when the new premises were destroyed in April 1942. Also during the war, Ellis was commissioned to record scenes in Bath for the Recording Britain project. In particular, in 1942 he was commissioned to depict examples of the decorative architectural ironwork seen on the city's buildings as the Ministry of Works were removing the iron to help the war effort. As well as simply painting examples of the decoration, Ellis intervened with the Ministry to save several important, early nineteenth century examples from being scrapped. Ellis also recorded the effects of the Bath Blitz bombing raids on the city and the War Artists' Advisory Committee purchased examples of these pieces and also his depiction of the VE-Day celebrations in the city.

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