HOLDING THE LINE

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The Art of the War Years 1914-18 & 1939-45

4th Annual War Art Exhibition

we have also acquired a complete collection of the artist’s deeply affecting

wartime posters: ‘Seeing It Through’, which show six London Transport

employees who had performed acts of outstanding bravery in the course of

their duty.

While Eric Kennington was being rightly fêted for his stirring work as an

Official War Artist, the satirist and cartoonist Albert Hill was prevented

from being able to work at all. His homeland - the Channel Islands - were

the only piece of the United Kingdom to be occupied by the Germans.

Earlier this year, we acquired a wonderful cache of Hill’s private sketchbooks,

including one extraordinary example spanning the period 1939-40. Hill was

a witty and versatile cartoonist but also, in his more private moments, a

powerful graphic artist. Seen sequentially, these satisfyingly scurrilous

images tell the tale of the build up to war and the ‘Phoney’ War with humour and occasionally striking

graphic power. The creation of these images stops, abruptly and eerily, as the Wehrmacht troopships arrive

on Guernsey in June 1940. Fortunately, Hill somehow managed to prevent his work from being seized by

the Gestapo.

One of the surprising features of dealing in war art, is how much material remains in private hands. The

majority of the work produced by Official War Artists was retained and has passed into local and national

museums, but fascinating examples continue to emerge. This year, we’ve acquired two of the best wartime

watercolours by Thomas Hennell to have remained in private hands, both from the same distinguished

private collection, that of Hennell devotee John Darlington, who sadly died earlier this year.

Following last year’s rediscovery of one of the Blitz’s most iconic pictures: ‘St Paul’s from the river’

(see p.62) by the ill-fated fireman artist Wilfred Stanley Haines, we have found some worthy successors.

‘Dornier Wreckage near Victoria Station’ by Haines’s fellow fireman artist, Frederick Cook, is a stunning

piece recording the aftermath of one of the most memorable incidents of the Blitz. Another rare find is

Reginald Mills’ extraordinary panorama: ‘Incendiary on Blackfriars Bridge’ – a terrifyingly apocalyptic

scene but one faced every day by the firemen artists.

And finally, if you want to know what the face of heroism on the ground looked like, you could not do

better than look into the haunted, distracted eyes of one ‘Fireman J.Claughton’, memorably captured at the

height of the Blitz by fireman artist, Paul Dessau. An important moment in history crystallised into great art.

Andrew Sim 2013

Introduction‘Holding the Line’ is the title of our annual show of war art, which is now in its fourth year. Why ‘Holding

the Line’? Our use of the phrase derives from a famous Second World War poster (designed incidentally by

a Frenchman for US consumption) depicting Winston Churchill as a bulldog astride a Union Flag-draped

map of Britain.

It is a piece of pure propaganda, undoubtedly, but with little of the embarrassing bombast or sentimentality

associated with the Soviet or Nazi equivalent. There is, in fact, a comic vulnerability about the image: a

Nation embodied in the form of a bow legged, short-winded animal with an elderly man’s face. But it is a

stirring, patriotic image nonetheless.

Our show is intended partly as a tribute to that spirit: the sotto voce indomitability; the understated wit; the

invention under pressure that, by the law of unintended consequences, produced some of the best British art

of the twentieth century. Now that the pain and sheer awfulness of World War Two is subsiding into history

from living memory, what remains of that time in the form of art has a power and poignancy all of its own.

Part of that power derives from the unpretentious straightforwardness of the material. War art has a duty

to communicate clearly and directly. This makes the art of this period stand out in sharp focus from the

indeterminacy and inexplicability of much pre- and, in particular, post-war art.

Our first three war shows have contained a diversity and quality of material that has continued to be

enthusiastically received, and have included a string of significant, museum-quality discoveries in the field.

This year’s show continues the trend, with a quite extraordinary range of interesting and unusual pictures

At the top of this list must be Eric Kennington’s patriotic masterpiece ‘Resurgence’, unseen with its correct

title since it was exhibited for the first time at a Leicester Galleries exhibition in 1943. This powerful and

evocative pastel shows that Kennington was not only the outstanding draughtsman of his generation but

an imaginative artist of the first order. Inspired by the pivotal Allied victory at El Alamein, Kennington’s

picture conjures up the spirit of a distant crusading past and the memory of that hero of the Great War, his

friend T.E.Lawrence, in a stirring epiphany.

Kennington was acknowledged by the wartime authorities as a peerless propagandist; his work was thought

to be good for morale and Kennington strove hard to achieve this. As a complement to ‘Resurgence’,

HOLDING THE LINE

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Picture courtesy Imperial War Museum

‘One of the most memorable incidents of the Blitz’

‘The outstanding draughtsman of his generation’

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Resurgence

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Eric Kennington’s patriotic masterpiece ‘Resurgence’, is shown here with its correct title for the first time since it was exhibited at a Leicester Galleries exhibition in 1943. This powerful and evocative pastel shows that Kennington was not only the outstanding draughtsman of his generation but an imaginative artist of the first order. Inspired by the pivotal Allied victory at El Alamein, Kennington’s picture conjures up the spirit of a distant crusading past and the memory of that hero of the Great War, his friend T.E.Lawrence, in a stirring epiphany.

Resurgence is one of Kennington’s most potent imaginative works and brings together two important threads of the artist’s career as a painter: his depiction of military heroes in general and his close relationship with one British hero, T.E.Lawrence, in particular. As the title and subject matter of the work suggests, ‘Resurgence’ was produced in 1942, at a significant turning point in the war, after the successful battle for El Alamein had renewed Britain’s sense of self belief and mission. Kennington takes as his subject three sword-bearing knights rising from their tombs to protect the nation in its hour of need.

The iconography of the three swordbearers is fascinating, taken as they are from Dorchester Abbey, close to where Lawrence lived, died and is buried, and Temple Church in the City, which was destroyed in a Luftwaffe raid in 1940. Kennington is the artist most associated with T.E.Lawrence. It was Kennington who was chosen to illustrate Lawrence’s seminal work, ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ and who also produced the iconic bust of Lawrence used in the opening scene of David Lean’s ‘Lawrence of Arabia’.

Kennington also sculpted Lawrence’s memorial effigy in St Martin’s Church, Wareham in Dorset, using the effigy of the crusader knight Sir John Holcomb (above) that appears in ‘Resurgence’ as a model. Swords, too, had a particular significance for Lawrence. The quotation ‘The Sword also means clean-ness and death’ accompanied by a pair of crossed swords, was used by Lawrence as the motto of ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’. It is not too fanciful to conjecture that in ‘Resurgence’, in the spectacle of these heroes of the distant past disturbed from their sleep with their swords at the ready, Kennington is also invoking the ghost of his warrior friend Lawrence - the great hero of the first war - at the very moment that the North African desert had become the field of conflict between Axis and Allied forces in the second.

A Patriotic Epiphany

Exhibited: London, The Leicester Galleries, September 1943, no.32,

Provenance. Purchased at the above exhibition by Wing Cdr and Mrs R. G. Sims & by descent. (Reginald Gordon Sims - like Kennington - was a friend of T.E Lawrence and after Lawrence’s death wrote a memoir of his friend, entitled ‘The Sayings & Doings of T.E.Lawrence’)

Literature: News Review 1943 (front cover as ‘Britain Resurgent’) The Studio July 1943

ERIC KENNINGTON R.A. (1888-1960)

Pastel CAT. 1

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Dr Jonathan Black, the foremost authority on Eric Kennington’s work, has described the ‘Seeing it Through’ set of posters as ‘very fine examples of EK’s Neue Sachlichkeit with a human face’. Neue Sachlichkeit or ‘New Objectivity’ was a phrase coined to describe the art of the Weimar Republic, which attempted to engage afresh with the realities of everyday life. The series of six pastels, to be adapted for use as posters, was commissioned from Kennington by the London Passenger Transport Board in 1943 to commemorate the heroism of its employees during the London Blitz and featured half a dozen individuals who had performed acts of bravery and resourcefulness. An article in the magazine ‘Art and Industry’ commented: “these men and women typify the cool courage and endurance shown by public servants during the inferno. The choice of artist fell on Eric Kennington and could not have been improved upon. Moved himself by the greatness of the working people and having a sincere admiration and respect for their qualities, the theme was one which inspired him and which gave ample scope for his style and technique.” In a letter to his daughter, Kennington wrote: “I absolutely love brave people when they don’t know they’re brave.”

Each poster was accompanied by a caption, consisting of poems by Kennington’s friend, the poet A.P. Herbert. The six posters in the series were chosen as six of the 150 best posters produced by London Transport to mark the 150th anniversary of the London Underground.

The six men and women commemorated were:

Desirée Ellinger, who drove a NFS (National Fire service) mobile canteen around the London Docks during the Blitz, was also an actress and singer, particularly known for her performances in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. In 1948, she starred in an historical pageant called ‘The London Story’ commissioned by the L.C.C (London County Council) and performed at the Finsbury Park Open Air Theatre.

Elsie Birrell, who was employed as one of the first women porters on the tube in September 1940. She was based at Stockwell Station and displayed considerable heroism when that station was bombed two months later. Birrell complained at the time that she had been required to maintain the pose for over an hour. Birrell House, a tower block in Stockwell is named in her honour.

Mary Morgan, a 20 year old bus conductress from Poplar, who sheltered two children during a day raid in September 1940, saving their lives. Kennington said she had the complexion of a fresh peach.

Frank Clarke, a tube driver, whose train was bombed in September 1940 just outside Sloane Square. Blown clean out of his cab, he returned, injured, to the scene and rescued scores of other victims.

Albert Coe, a young bus driver, who displayed notable bravery when helping his passengers to safety after his bus was blown into a bomb crater in October 1940. Kennington described him as “a nice young man” who kept insisting that he didn’t know why they chose him for the honour of having his portrait painted.

John Gordon Woodage, a Police Constable attached to the Transport Police, who tended to wounded passengers after a tube station had been bombed.

SEEING IT THROUGH

Albert Coe CAT. 2 Lithograph

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Mary Morgan CAT. 3 Lithograph

Desirée Ellinger CAT. 4 Lithograph

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Frank Clarke CAT. 5 Lithograph

Elsie Birrell CAT. 6 Lithograph

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John Gordon Woodage CAT. 7 Lithograph

FELIKS TOPOLSKI (1907-1989)

At the outbreak of war, Feliks Topolski was in London, a reserve officer in the ill-fated Polish cavalry. He was prevented from returning to Poland by the rapidity of the German invasion of his country and became an Official War Artist instead in his adopted country, recording, initially, the effects of the Blitz in London (he was injured by a bomb while sketching in Soho). Topolski was given the rank of Lieutenant and worked for both the British and Polish government in exile, which was led by General Wladyslaw Sikorski. The General, a stiff Edwardian figure, was drawn by Topolski a number of times. Here, Sikorski is depicted in his blue dress uniform, perhaps returning from a formal function, as he is accompanied by his wife, as well as a soldier. Topolski had unusually free access to important figures and events and recorded them in the manner of a war photographer, which played to his strengths as an atmospheric sketcher.

General Sikorski & party in wartime London, c.1940, CAT. 8 Watercolour, pencil and chalk

A Nation in Exile

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WILLIAM MACPHERSON V.P.R.S.W. (1904-70)

War Weapons Week

A Messerschmitt was captured intact by the RAF in November 1939 – one of the few propaganda coups of the so-called ‘Phoney War’ period in 1939-40. After a period of testing at Farnborough, the captured aircraft was used as a publicity attraction in the Government fund-rasing schemes known as ‘War Weapons Weeks’

In these piggy bank-thumping exercises, a town’s residents - in this case Paisley - were encouraged to save their money in various Government accounts, such as War and Defence Bonds. The ‘War Weapons Weeks’ consisted of a week of parades, exhibitions and displays of war paraphernalia.

Captured Messerschmitt - War Weapons Week at Paisley, June 1940 CAT. 9 Watercolour, signed and dated 1940

1930s Ham Radio Operator CAT. 10 Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1939

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RONALD BRADSHAW (fl.1930-40)

Amateur radio enthusiasts, popularly known as ‘Hams’, first emerged in the early twentieth century but enjoyed a particular heyday in the 1930s. Their networks and wireless tracking expertise was later channelled into the wartime ‘Y service’, which listened to and recorded enemy wireless transmissions. Much later, when Bletchley Park (known as Station ‘X’) the secret hub of the Y service, was threatened with demolition, it was saved with help from the Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Club, who built a radio station there. With help from the experts at Bletchley and the Radio Society of Great Britain, we have been able to track down the call sign of the Ham Radio station illustrated here – an extremely rare, if not unique, painted image of a 1930s ‘Ham’ in action. He is a W Rogers of Northampton who used the call sign ‘G2SY’ in this period.

EDWARD BAINBRIDGE COPNALL P.R.B.S (1903-73)

Edward Bainbridge Copnall was a camouflage officer in WWII, based mostly in the North African desert. The evocative, tender nature of this scene, delicately realised in pen and wash, belies the trauma of its background. The so-called ‘Knightsbridge Box’, an important Allied defensive position near Tobruk, was the scene of a bloody and unsuccessful rearguard action by the 201st Guards Brigade on the 13 June 1942. It was one of a number of defeats on that day at the hands of a then rampant Afrika Korps, which became known in army folklore as ‘Black Saturday’. Copnall was a versatile artist, who was later to achieve fame as a sculptor, becoming President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.

Bedouin refugees flee the ‘Knightsbridge Box’ during the Battle of Gazala CAT.11Pen, ink and watercolour signed, inscribed and dated ‘42 (further inscribed verso)

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Fireman J. Claughton CAT. 13 Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1940

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Some of the most dramatic images of the war were produced by the Firemen Artist Group, which was made up of artists and designers who had volunteered for the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS). Unlike most war art, the work of the firemen artists was produced by men who were themselves participants – an active part of a service described by Churchill as ‘heroes with grimy faces’.

PAUL LUCIEN DESSAU (1909-99)

David Buckman, who wrote a moving tribute to Dessau in his obituary in The Independent, described his output recording the London Blitz as “among the finest canvases produced in the Second World War”. Dessau was working as a commercial artist when war broke out. He volunteered for the Auxiliary Fire Service and quickly became a founder member of the Firemen Artists Organising Committee, an extraordinarily active, interesting and intrepid group of artists, who recorded the Blitz from the thick of the action. Dr Anthony Kelly, the author of a recent groundbreaking study called ‘Firemen Artists’ describes Dessau as “one of the most productive and inventive members of the group”. He was also a very fine portraitist, as this powerful depiction of fellow AFS fireman, John Claughton, clearly shows. The smartly clipped ‘Ronald Colman’ moustache perhaps indicates a white collar career beyond the fire service, but, more importantly, the tough, focussed stare and lines under the eyes refer clearly to the events still unfolding at the time the portrait was painted – in the middle of the relentless London Blitz. Kenneth Clark’s War Artists Advisory Committee purchased Dessau’s portrait of G.V Blackstone for the nation (now housed in the Imperial War Museum) and he is also represented in the Museum of London, the Royal Air Force Museum and a number of other local and national collections. Exhibited Firemen Artists Exhibition 1941.

FIREMEN ARTISTS

Bombed out CAT. 12 Pen and wash, signed

RONALD D. MOORE (1899-1985)

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REGINALD MILLS (1896-1950)

In this subtly dramatic image of St Paul’s at the height of the London Blitz in 1940, the qualities of fireman artist Reginald Mills as an outstanding realist painter are seen to good effect. Despite its power as an image, the fire-illumined cathedral merely provides a backdrop for the real action of the scene: a firefighting crew about to engage a blaze on Blackfriars Bridge and other figures on the Southwark side rushing to deal with another. A sense is created that the protection of the Nation’s symbolic heart consists of hundreds of individual acts of courage. As Anthony Kelly writes in his recent book on the work of the firemen artists: “Mills stands out as a fireman artist who excelled in representing the realities of fighting fire during the Blitz on London”.

Incendiary on Blackfriars’ Bridge, 1940 CAT.14Oil on canvas, signed

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FREDERICK T.W. COOK (1907-82)

Dornier Wreckage Nr. Victoria Station

This rare watercolour records the aftermath of one of the most dramatic incidents of the entire London Blitz, when a Dornier bomber thought to be headed for Buckingham Palace was rammed by a Hurricane flown by Sgt Ray ‘Arty’ Holmes, forcing it to crash onto the forecourt of Victoria Station. The artist, Frederick Cook, was an auxiliary fireman and one of the most remarkable members of the Firemen Artists Group formed during the Second World War. Taking a very different approach from most of his fellow fireman artists, Cook seems to have concentrated less on the straightforward reportage of firefighting and attempted instead to step back and think more deeply about the visual impact of the Blitz and its aftermath – in the manner of Paul Nash or David Bomberg. Nevertheless, although Cook’s work could occasionally veer into the realm of the imaginatively surreal, most of his visually striking compositions are firmly grounded in reality. As Dr Anthony Kelly notes in his thoughtful recent study of the subject, the artist’s work has a “visionary quality”. Kelly adds: “Cook’s painting avoids the drama and spectacle of raging fires, showing instead subtle harmonies of tone and colour, which suggest sombre reflection and meditation rather than more primitive emotions.” Cook worked equally effectively in watercolour as oil and his work can be found in a number of National and local museums, including the Imperial War Museum and the Plymouth City Gallery.

Sgt Ray ‘Arty’ Holmes in his Hurricane

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Dornier Wreckage near Victoria Station CAT. 15 Watercolour and gouache, signed Exhibited: Fireman Artists Exhibition Aug 1942. No.71

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George Dickman (f.1940)Ludgate Hill after a raid, 1941 CAT. 16 Watercolour

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WILLIAM LIONEL CLAUSE N.E.A.C. (1887-1946)

This highly detailed picture of the aftermath of one of the last manned Luftwaffe sorties of the war - a day raid in January 1943 ordered by Hitler in retaliation for a raid on Berlin - is a considerable rarity, having surprisingly remained in open circulation. An official censor’s stamp on the back of the work clears it for publication, despite the fact that it depicts a chaotic and potentially demoralising scene of devastation and suffering, with male and female Civil Defence personnel tending to a badly wounded - possibly dead - victim. Clause, who was licenced to produce images of the Home Front, was an unusual war artist, considerably older than most in his mid fifties, and an academic landscape painter. Clause lived in Hampstead and was a mainstay of the New English Arts Club, of which he was Honorary Secretary.

Treating the wounded, Hyde Park Gardens, Bayswater CAT. 17 Watercolour and pencil, signed and dated 1943

CIVIL DEFENCE

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CHILDREN AT WAR

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The disruption of children’s lives in World War Two was unprecedented. Operation ‘Pied Piper’ resulted in over three million women and children being moved from their homes in the largest mass evacuation ever attempted by a modern society. It was a rich seam for artists to exploit and collected here are a few examples: gas mask drills, a refugee mother and child clinging to one another and the restrictions of wartime bathing.

Charles Mahoney (1890-1980) Children learning how to use gas masks CAT. 19

Graphite, c.1939Background - Rosemary Rutherford ‘Wartime Bathing 1943’ Pen and ink

HUBERT ARTHUR FINNEY (1905-91)

Finney graduated from the Royal College of Art before embarking on a teaching career. At the outbreak of war, he joined the Civil Defence Light Rescue Service and was granted permission to record his work. The Light Rescue service got their name from the lightweight equipment they carried, such as stretchers, ropes and first-aid kits; their task was to rescue trapped civilians from bombed buildings.

Interior of bombed London townhouse CAT. 18 Oil on board, signed & dated 1940

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Evacuation CAT. 23 Graphite

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Watercolour, 1942 CAT. 20

ROSEMARY RUTHERFORD (1912-60)

Refugee Mother & Child Wartime schoolboy

LEONIE JONLEIGH (1901-74)

ENGLISH SCHOOL c. 1940

The Headscarf CAT. 22 Oil on canvas, signed

Watercolour CAT. 21

Rosemary Rutherford was a Slade-trained artist who volunteered as a

VAD Nurse in WWII

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Infantryman in urban camouflage CAT. 25 Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1943

JAMES PROUDFOOT R.P., R.O.I. (1908-71)

A Pathé news film survives of the portrait painter, James Proudfoot, adding the finishing touches to his portrait of Australian Daily Express war correspondent, Alan Wood – presumably a Daily Express commission. Proudfoot is not known to have been a war artist and it is possible that the commission to produce this portrait of an infantryman in urban camouflage, complete with torn newspaper stuffed into his helmet and combat fatigues, formed part of the same series (the word ‘Express’ can clearly be seen in a section of torn newspaper). Proudfoot, a flamboyant, bearded figure even in wartime, later became a fixture of the Chelsea arts scene and a noted society portraitist.

THE BRITISH TOMMY

Franklin White (1892-1975) Infantryman in Poncho CAT. 24

Watercolour and graphite, c.1944

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‘Short Arm’ inspection CAT. 26 Watercolour, signed and dated ‘Yates 42’

HAROLD YATES (1916-2001)

Yates served with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry during the war, during which time he received permission to produce a documentary visual record of life in the army, examples of which were eventually purchased by the War Artists Advisory Committee and are now in various museums, including the Imperial War Museum. Yates had studied at Portsmouth School of Art before the war and was an extremly versatile and talented artist. His war drawings are accurate and gritty as well as wryly amusing in the vein of an Ardizzone, as in this euphemistically-titled depiction of a vital but delicate medical routine.

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Infantryman in Poncho CAT. 27 Watercolour and graphite, c.1944

FRANKLIN WHITE (1892-1975)

Franklin White was drawing master at the Slade when war broke out. The school closed for the duration but Slade staff were expected to do their bit for the war effort. In White’s case, this consisted of digging up his garden for vegetable production and billeting ‘colonial airmen’ in his house at Shoreham. The village was inundated with soldiers during the war, principally the Royal Engineers, who manned anti-aircraft positions in the valley.

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Hanging out the washing CAT. 28 Waterdolour c.1944

STANLEY COOKE (1913-96)

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ACountryman At WarThomas Hennell in Burma and Normandy

The RAF Museum houses the main body of work produced by Hennell during his brief stay in Burma in 1945. Hennell was seconded to the RAF at the time and divided his time between dutiful records of airfields and forays into the jungle. In this work, native labourers are depicted repairing the damage to Pegu airfield, which had been recently recaptured from the Japanese. A Dakota troop transport can be seen in the background.

Coolies draining and levelling, Pegu airfield, Burma 1945 CAT. 29 Watercolour, signed T.Hennell

In this extremely rare depiction of the aftermath of the D-Day landings, Hennell shows the litter of war - captured anti-aircraft guns - discarded in a field of ripening wheat against the background of a dramatically louring sky. La Délivrande had been a vital German radar station and was extremely heavily defended. After the landings at nearby Juno Beach on June 5/6 1944, the Germans successfully defended La Délivrande for 12 days before it was eventually stormed

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Captured guns at La Délivrande, June 1944 CAT. 30 Watercolour, pen and ink

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by a massive offensive by Royal Marine Commandos. Hennell had arrived in Normandy on June 11 and immediately made a request that he be allowed to travel further inland “to give me real scope for something wider & bigger”. Another watercolour depicting ‘Burnt and Broken Tanks near La Délivrande, Normandy , June 1944’ is in the Collection of the Imperial War Museum.

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Hennell inscribed this watercolour ‘Before the Storm, Ridley 43’ on the back with his usual precision. It is a depiction of working horses at leisure in the large flat field opposite the Old Rectory at Ridley where Hennell’s father was vicar and where the artist had been brought up. But perhaps it is not too fanciful to think that the description also refers obliquely to Hennell’s recent appointment as a war artist, news of which had just been received when this watercolour was produced. Within a few weeks, Hennell would be in Iceland, replacing his friend, Eric Ravilious, who had been reported missing on a reconnaissance flight the previous year.

Before the storm, Ridley 1943 CAT. 31 Watercolour, inscribed verso

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Horse and Tractor CAT. 32 Watercolour, inscribed verso

Apocalyptic Landscape CAT. 33 Watercolour

JOHN NASH C.B.E., R.A. (1893-1977)

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PAUL WOLFGANG BRUNT (fl 1890-1920)

Anti-Zeppelin Searchlights at Westminster Cathedral

German aerial attacks on London during the Great War were much less devastating than their Second World War equivalent but their psychological impact was tremendous. Searchlights were initially manned by police but later by the Royal Flying Corps.

Anti-Zeppelin Searchlights at Westminster Cathedral CAT. 34 Pastel, signed inscribed and dated 1916

THE GREAT WAR

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ALBERT OLIPHANT-FRASER (1897-1940)

Albert Oliphant-Fraser spent the early part of his working life as a pilot in the terrifying wooden bi-planes of the Royal Flying Corps - the precursor of the RAF - in the Great War. He joined up as a cadet and survived the horrendous levels of attrition to finish the war as a Second Lieutenant, producing some dramatic images of his life as a pilot. The subject described is a night bombing raid by a specialist squadron equipped with an ungainly-looking plane called a Vickers FE2b, whose target was Baron Von Richtoften’s so-called ‘Flying Circus’ – a mobile and highly successful squadron of enemy aircraft. The RFC Squadron’s motto was a skull and crossbones allegedly pilfered from a French brothel. After the war, Oliphant-Fraser became a full-time painter, working in a heavily impastoed, impressionist style.

A Royal Flying Corps night bomber caught in searchlights CAT. 35 Oil on board, signed and dated 1917

WALTER PERCIVAL STARMER R.W.S. (1877-1961)

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Walter Percival Starmer was born in Teignmouth in 1877, but grew up in Norwich, where his father, a Congregationalist minister, worked for the Bible Society. Starmer was an outstanding student artist at the Norwich School of Art and progressed to Birmingham School of Art, where he received his first public commission: a mural for Birmingham Town Hall.

Starmer inherited his father’s missionary zeal and, at the outbreak of the Great War, chose to serve first as a Red Cross ambulance man and then with the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), whose symbol was a red triangle. As well as producing descriptive watercolours of the conflict, Starmer also decorated the interior of the treatment huts with reassuring and decorative murals.

Starmer’s wartime work was highly valued by the YMCA, and his watercolours were used to illustrate the wartime section of ‘The Romance of the Red Triangle”, Sir Arthur Yapp’s definitive 1919 history of the organisation.

Alan Walker, the author of a forthcoming study of Starmer says: “Starmer’s watercolours of devastated landscapes and ruined towns (over thirty of which are in the Imperial War Museum) display the horrors of the conflict but also include subtle Christian imagery suggesting Starmer’s perception of the War as an eschatological event as well as a personal spiritual reorientation.”

During the war, Starmer met and became friends with the chaplain of a Red Cross Unit called Basil Bourchier. It was a fortuitous meeting; in peacetime, Bourchier was the vicar of Sir Edwin Lutyens’s recently completed ecclesiastical masterpiece, St Jude’s in Hampstead Garden Suburb, which had yet to be internally decorated. It was a virtual blank canvas for Starmer’s work as a muralist, a project that would occupy him for much of the rest of his career.

With thanks to Alan Walker, the vicar of St Jude’s Church in Hampstead Garden Suburb, a Lutyens design, which contains a number of murals, paintings and stained glass designs by Starmer. Father Walker is currently writing a book on Starmer.

W.P.Starmer photo courtesy Kirkby Starmer Collection

MURALS OF DEVASTATION

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Death Valley - Between Montauban and Flers CAT. 36 Watercolour, signed and dated. Original frame and labels.

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Albert - Bapaume Road CAT. 37 Watercolour, extensively inscribed and signed. Original frame and labels.

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In a handwritten note attached to the picture’s 100 year old frame, Starmer describes its subject as follows: “This road before the war was lined with tall trees, cultivated fields and many villages. Nothing can be seen now but intersecting shell holes. The road is kept in good condition in order to carry the heavy traffic to Cambrai etc”.

Cambrai to Bapaume Road & the Hindenburg Line CAT. 38 Watercolour, extensively inscribed and signed. Original frame and labels.

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Again, Starmer’s original description of the contents of the picture survives on a brown paper label pasted to the frame. He says: “Showing where the Hindenburg Line and the Nord Canal cut across the road between the two mine craters which were blown in the road by the retiring army”.

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ALBERT HILL (1901-86)

This remarkable collection of highly topical satirical drawings and gouaches are the work of professional cartoonist, Albert Hill, who worked for The Guernsey Star before and after the War, as well as freelancing for other publications and comic strips. Hill seems to have produced these sketchbooks as a personal record of the turbulent political events of the late 1930s and the cataclysm of war as it unfolded.

Most of these precisely dated drawings were produced contemporaneously with the events they describe and constitute a unique, graphic depiction of the period. What makes this colourful record all the more remarkable is that it stops, abruptly, with the Nazi invasion of the Channel Islands in June 1940, during which time, Hill’s work as a cartoonist ceased.

The Guernsey Museum holds a number of Hill’s sketchbooks but none from this period. Presumably their scurrilously anti-Nazi content would have meant that they were kept safely hidden during the period of German occupation. The extraordinary quality and finish of some of the work suggests that they were intended as works of lasting value, rather than simply notes for reproduction as cartoons.

THE PHONEY WAR-a Satirical Eye

Death on the Dole CAT. 40 Watercolour and pen

Hitler & Goering Jan 16, 1940 CAT. 41 Watercolour and pen

Stalin as Gulliver Jan 4, 1940 CAT. 42 Watercolour and pen

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Export or Die! CAT. 39 Watercolour and pen

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Soviet soldier crucified on Hammer & Sickle Mar 20, 1940 CAT. 43 Watercolour and pen

Hitler & Mussolini as Auctioneers CAT. 45 Watercolour and pen

Murderous Red Menace - Mar 15, 1940 CAT. 46 Watercolour and pen

Hitler astride a bomb - Dec 31, 1939 CAT. 44 Watercolour and pen

55

56

Hitler & Stalin as reluctant lovers - Feb 19, 1940 CAT. 48 Watercolour and pen

Hitler (jockey) riding Stalin (racehorse) - Mar 22, 1940 CAT. 47 Watercolour and pen

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British bombing raid on Sylt - We Fight Back! - Mar 20, 1940 CAT. 50 Watercolour and pen

Baltic States as the Curious Oysters CAT. 49 Watercolour and pen

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FACING THE FUTURE

Grace Golden A.R.C.A. (1904-93)Trafalgar Day CAT. 51 Watercolour, signed

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Marianne Von Werther was a Czech national, who studied art in Vienna before fleeing the Nazis in the late 1930s. She established herself as an artist, exhibiting widely at the Royal Academy and elsewhere. Her beautifully crafted and precise watercolours provide a marvellous record for the social historian, with the result that many of her watercolours have ended up in museum collections, such as the Museum of London. Her points of view are always surprising and never chocolate boxey, as in this view of three converging London streets, complete with cranes and scaffolded buildings, the kind of detritus that most artists leave out.

Marianne Von Werther R.B.A. (1904-84) Post-war reconstruction: Notting Hill Gate c.1950 CAT. 52

Watercolour, signed l.r

Reconstruction

Celebration

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Claude Bendall (1891-1970)The New Baby, signed and dated 1946 CAT. 53 Watercolour and pencil

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New Beginnings Artists’ indexClaude Bendall 60 Ronald Bradshaw 16 Paul Wolfgang Brunt 43 William Lionel Clause 25 Frederick Cook 22-23 Stanley Cooke 34-35 Edward Bainbridge Copnall 17 Paul Dessau 19 George Dickman 24 Hubert Arthur Finney 26 Grace Golden 58 Thomas Hennell 36-41 Albert Hill 52-57Leonie Jonleigh 29 Eric Kennington 5-12 William Macpherson 14-15 Charles Mahoney 27 Reginald Mills 20-21 Ronald Moore 18John Nash 41 Albert Oliphant-Fraser 44 James Proudfoot 31 Rosemary Rutherford 27-29 Walter Percival Starmer 45-51 Feliks Topolski 13 Marianne Von Werther 59 Franklin White 30, 33 Harold Yates 32

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...FOUR YEARS ONHOLDING THE LINE... Collectors’ Items & Museum Pieces

ROSEMARY RUTHERFORD ‘VAD Nurse’ Private Collection

W.S. HAINES ‘St Paul’s from the river’. Exhibited 2012, now Private Collection PEGARET KEELING ‘Wartime Factory’ Private Collection

GRACE GOLDEN ‘Fourstones tournament’. Exhibited 2012, now V&A Museum of Childhood CLIFFORD HALL ‘B.U.F Rally’. Exhibited 2010, now Imperial War Museum

Acknowledgements

Photography

Design

Ted BakerBas Schuddeboom & Studio LambiekDr Jonathan BlackClaire Brenard John DellMark DessauCarlos EavisBetty ElzeaKatherine FieldSimon Hamon & Richard Heaume, Guernsey Occupation Museum Dr Anthony KellyKirkby (Starmer) Collection Paul LissMichael MacleodPhil Martin, Guernsey Occupation SocietyJoan Oliphant-FraserFelicity OwenRadio Society of Great Britain, Bletchley ParkRichard SlocombeThe Shoreham SocietyAnnabel ThomasDaniel TopolskiRev. Alan WalkerJenny & Naomi WestonLaurence Worms

Matthew Hollow

Ant Graphics Design Services

Contact: Andrew and Diane Sim Email: simfineart@btinternet.com Telephone: 07919 356150