A few months ago, back in the spring of 2025, I was honoured to be asked to be involved in an incredible project that aimed to bring the work of a little known local artist to print and hopefully to the attention of a wider audience. As soon as I saw the amazing images that this artist, Oliver Bedford, had produced and heard the incredible story of his life and his journeys through China I knew that it was something that I wanted to be part of!
So, welcome to the China of Yesterday!
Since then the plan has become a reality through the hard work and dedication of Sam Davison of North Coast Books and the patience and unwavering belief of Anita Bedford, daughter of Oliver, for whom this project has been a labour of love. The result is a stunning book that I am proud to introduce you all to.
But first . . .
Who was Oliver Bedford?
Oliver Bedford moved to Cornwall in 1948 to teach at the Truro School of Art and began exhibiting his work here around that time. He soon gained a reputation for his landscape paintings and was made a Life Member of St Ives Society of Artists and had a solo show at the Royal Institution of Cornwall in 1956. In the 1960s he opened his own gallery and studio where he exhibited and sold his work, much of which was inspired by his many travels.
And it is these travels that this new book, China of Yesterday, celebrates.
Born in Yorkshire, as a teenager Oliver Bedford (1902 – 1977) spent time in Hanover in Germany and then Rome, where he attended the Royal Institute of Fine Arts from 1919 to 1923. He was awarded a Professorship in Architectural Design in Rome at the age of 21 and travelled extensively through Italy and Egypt, indulging his passion for painting and archaeology.
But it is his time spent in China that is truly remarkable!
Exploring the China of Yesterday
When Bedford took his trip to China in the late 1930s, he couldn’t have known that he would become one of the last Western visitors to see the country before a destructive war changed it forever. Fortunately for us, and for history, he armed himself with stacks of notebooks and his faithful camera and snapped and sketched his way over mountains, along rivers and across isolated plains, gifting to us all this very special guide to a fascinating and beautiful land.
Marooned on the freezing Mongolia Steppes while hunting for wolves, becoming the impromptu skipper of a stolen river boat or listening to farfetched legends told by wizened, old Buddhist priests – this book allows us to join Oliver Bedford for these amazing escapades and many, many more, all while also relishing the rare and beautiful collection of imagery his captured.
‘China of Yesterday’ not only showcases Bedford’s exceptional artistic abilities, his hyper-realistic pen and ink drawings are incredible, but perhaps more significantly it reveals a never-before-seen body of work of arguably international importance. He has preserved for us the now drowned landscapes, forgotten cultural scenes and a way of life destroyed by internal conflict, cultural evolution and the march of modernity.
As well as pages and pages of his colourful watercolours and stunning pen and ink drawings, this unique book also reproduces Bedford’s evocative diary of his trip in full, alongside his collection of fascinating photographs for the very first time anywhere.
It charts this talented artist as he ventures 6000 miles through a now vanished world.
I might be bias but I think it is a wonderful, beautiful and important book!
Anyone interested in China, or anyone who finds joy in artistic endeavour, will love this book!
Sharing the Book
This is a project that I was very proud to have been involved in, although my contribution was really very small (I had the pleasure of editing Bedford’s diary for typos and placenames). It was Sam of North Coast Books who worked tirelessly to design a stunning volume that would do justice to the art and Anita who has been the incredible custodian of her father’s work and legacy.
In the future Anita hopes that her father’s work will get much more of the attention and recognition that it rightly deserves, as the beautiful works of art that they are but also as a unique and valuable repository of a culture and a landscape that in many ways no longer exists.
If you would like a copy of the book you can purchase one from Anita’s website – OLIVER BEDFORD ARTIST
The book is hardback with dustjacket and has over 200 pages of colour and black and white images.