John Aldridge RA was born in 1905. In 1932 he moved to Bardfield where he lived until his death in 1983. He was a self-taught artist who had a distinguished career as a painter and teacher at the Slade School of Art. Although in 1931 was associated with 'Seven and Five' Society after it had entered its avant-garde modernist phase, he became a noted landscape painter who produced many scenes of Essex and of his garden, which was his passion. He worked extensively in oils, and in other media. He formed Bardfield Wallpapers with Edward Bawden, and although this venture was curtailed by the war, the designs were continued by Cole and Son in the 1950. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1954 and a Royal Academician (RA) in 1963.
