Colours of War

The concept of 'war artist' as relating to painters rather than commercial illustrators is virtually unique to Britain. The work they did during the Second World, under the auspices of the War Artists Advisory Committee, and the circumstances in which they produced it, is the subject of Alan Ross's discerning and sympathetic study--the first of its kind. Drawing largely on the Imperial War Museum's archives and quoting at length from artists' letters from the different fronts, Alan Ross provides a context for discussion of the work itself. He relates war paintings of individual artists to their art in general, analyses their attitudes to war and to the subject of war art, and describes their problems. Among Home Front artists, some of them veterans of the 1914-1918 war, were Nevinson, Spencer, Bomberg, Robers, Moore, Sutherland and Piper. They painted such subjects as the Blitz, munition-workers, anti-aircraft defences, miners and shipbuilders. Outstanding were the large-scale works dealing with aerial warfare of England by Paul Nash, a survivor of the Western Front. Three exceptionally talented war artists were killed; Eric Ravilious, whose subjects ranged from northern convoys and submarines to the Fleet Air Arm; Albert Richards, who painted paratroopers and tank-battles during the advance into Germany; and Thomas Hennell, who began work in trawlers off Iceland and was last seen in Java. The war in Europe, the Middle East and Burma was recorded variously by Edward Bawden, Anthony Gross, Edward Ardizzone and William Coldstream. Leonard Rosoman drew aircraft on the flight-decks of carriers in Japanese waters, Barnett Freedman produced studies of submarine and battleship crews. Some of the most dramatic paintings of the war were those made by Richard Eurich of preparations for D-Day. In almost every case active service had a crucial effect on the subsequent work of war artists. Alan Ross, himself a leading poet of the 1939-1945 war, has linked the various sections of the book with relevant extracts from the poems of Charles Causley, Keith Douglas, Roy Fuller, Bernard Gutteridge, Alun Lewis and F.T. Prince among others. The result is not only an absorbing account of a vital, little-documented period in British art, but a vivid description of the situation and conflicts of the artist at war. -- Inside jacket flap.