Bevan was born in Hove, Sussex in 1865 and grew up in Horsgate, near Cuckfield. He studied at Westminster School of Art, London and at the Académie Julian in Paris. His training during the 1890s also included two periods in Pont-Aven in Brittany – where he met Paul Gauguin – as well as time spent in Madrid and Tangier. He was a member of the Fitzroy Street, Camden Town, London and Cumberland Market Groups, founded in London between 1907 and 1914. In 1897, Bevan met and married the Polish artist Stanislawa de Karlowska (1876-1952). Three years later they moved to 14 Adamson Road, London, which remained their base for the rest of Bevan’s life. The couple became key figures in London’s art world before and after the First World War and held popular ‘at homes’ on Sunday afternoons during the 1910s.
Printmaking was an important part of Bevan’s artistic practice. He used lithography early in his career but turned away from the medium in 1901. After 17 years Bevan returned to lithography with aplomb at the end of the War. A work like The Plantation, 1922, shows his mature mastery of the technique, along with a simplification of form, angular structure and clarity of composition. He brought this sensibility to all his landscape prints, capturing the essence of English villages and Polish homesteads in images including The White House, 1921, A Polish Homestead, 1922 and Smithy Barn, Bolham, 1919.