Mervyn Peake - RAF drawings

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?filter%5BagentString%5D%5B0%5D=%22Royal%20Air%20Force%22&filter%5BplaceString%5D%5B0%5D=%22Sussex%2C%20England%2C%20UK%22&query=

My tutor has also told me about the RAF drawings which Mervyn Peake did as an Official War Artist. I did a search to see what they were like. From the short search I did, I found some interesting examples on the 'Imperial War Museums' website. The link above takes you to the page I was looking at.

Making History - Art and Documentary in Britain from 1929 to Now

This book is about the making of documentary film and the impact of it on British artists during the twentieth century. It does include the work of Grierson, refered to as "the father of British documentary".  This book may be useful in gathering information about the subject of documentary film.

However, at this point in my research, I am beginning to develop a narrower pathway in what interests me in this essay topic. I think I would like to specialize more in the paintings and drawings (and possibly propaganda posters) in my essay, rather than the development of film documentation. Regardless, I am going to keep a record of everything I am looking at in case there is a new development in my thinking.

Graham Sutherland - The Wartime Drawings

I managed to get this book out of the library which I refered to earlier on in my blog. One of the first chapters gives a description of the brutality of the German bombing raids on Britain during the Second World War. This description will help to to get a sense of what the home front was really like and what the Official War Artists, such as Sutherland, had to respond to.

After this piece of writing, it goes into detail about Sutherland's contribution as a War Artist and what he did during this period of history. As well as this, there is also a huge range of pieces of art that Sutherland produced. When I looked through them, there was one image I was particualrly drawn to. It is called, "Devastation: City, East End Street" 1941. I find the use of extremely dark shades and the shadows of the piece demonstrates the destruction of the war and the mood of the scene very effectively.

This piece has given me a reminder of the fact that War Artists on the home front were not just recording the peace and tranquilty of which Britain was fighting to protect, such as the "Recording Britain" scheme, but they were also recording the terrible destruction of the bombing by German aircraft. This is another contrast in working style that I could refer to in my essay.

Paul Nash - futher research

These links provide an interesting addition to the research of this artist. If I choose to write about this artist, then this information will be useful.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars_conflict/art/act_art.shtml

This video provides an explanation for the concept of one of Paul Nash's most famous paintings, "Battle of Britain" (at the imperial war museum, London). This video also mentions the aims of the British government in war propaganda. They wanted to represent the British values in the imagery and to show how Britain was fighting to protect them. They wanted this message to get through to a wider audience. This idea links directly back to my essay title and so this video may prove to be very relevant.

Paul Nash

Paul Nash was an official war artist during both World Wars and this article I have found gives an interesting insight into his life and the struggles he had to deal with. It provides an explanation as to how his childhood and adult experiences shaped his techniques and style in his artwork.

http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue6/nash.htm

Eric Ravilious

Eric Ravilious was also an Official War Artist and in this first bit of research about him I found this quote from this guardian article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/30/eric-ravilious-painting-landscape-watercolour

 "Even when he became an official war artist, he tended to domesticate any novelty or threat – fighter planes line up harmlessly beyond a garden hedge, and barrage balloons bob cheerfully in the sky"

John Grierson

"John Grierson and the Documentary Film Movement" by Ian Aitken is a book which may be useful if I decide to look more in depth at the documentary film making during the war as it played a huge role in war propaganda.

Franciszka Themerson

Franciszka Themerson is an artist which my tutor has told me may be interesting to research in relevence to this topic. I found an interesting short documentary on youtube which briefly explains what she and her husband did over the period of the Second World War. It is an interesting story and adds another dimension to the research. This small piece of research may not make it into the essay due to the limited word count, but it is interesting all the same.

This quote was taken from this website;
http://www.gaberbocchus.nl/biography.html
This site is about the Gaberbocchus Press which she and her husband set up after the war.

"The Themersons played a major role in the history of independent, experimental and pre-war cinema in Poland, their significance for the development of the Polish avant-garde film is enormous."

Follies and Grottoes

This is the book by Barbara Jones which was refered to in the book "Recording Britain". I have managed to find this book in the university library.

Barbara Jones

After looking at the book "Recording Britain", I found out that Jones' approach to recording Britain was that, "England was a place of follies, excessive ornamentation and Gothic neglect." (pg 34)

pg 41: Barbara Jones' painting of the Hop Castle, Chieveley, Berkshire, 1940

Extract from same pg: "This is another example of the modest but fantastic architecture which is so quintessentially British and yet so rarely considered worth recording. Jones made a particular study of such neglected architectural conceits for 'Recording Britain'"

She published an illustrated History of this topic called, "Follies and Grottoes" (1953). I may look at this book for further research.

Book: Recording Britain, A Pictorial Domesday of Pre-war Britain

This book is about the "Recording Britain" scheme launched in 1940, which I refered to earlier in my research - "a unique visual record of the much-loved but rapidly changing British landscape of fifty years ago, captured by many of the country's finest watercolourists including John Piper, Michael Rothenstein, Rowland Hilder and William Russell Flint."

It was published in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum and was written by David Mellor, Gill Saubders and Patrick Wright.

Extract from introduction by Gill Saunders, pg 7 :

"artists should be appointed to make drawings, paintings and prints at the war fronts, in factories, workshops, shipyards and on the land, and of the changed life of the towns and villages, thus making a permanent record of life during the war which would be a memorial to the national effort, and of particular local value."

Also on pg 7, there is an interesting quote from Herbert Read about the aims of the scheme. It includes the words, "it shows us exactly what we are fighting for." This is very relevent to my essay question.

The images in this book are a huge contrast to John Piper's shocking paintings of the destroyed buildings, as this scheme was to represent the peace and tranquility that Britain was trying to protect from industrialisation as well as War.

This book should provide me with a lot more background information on the "Recording Britain" scheme which I am interested in.

Mervyn Peake

http://www.mervynpeake.org/artist.html

In 1943, as a war artist, Peake was commissioned to paint the glass blowers at a Birmingham factory. A painting of this is being shown at the Manchester Art Gallery which I saw fairly recently at the Manchester City Art Gallery. This may be an interesting piece to refer to.

After this, he was sent to Germany and France to create a visual record of the victims of war, particulary the work he did based in Belsen.

Graham Sutherland

Graham Sutherland was an Official War Artist who also worked on the home front. He depicted the destruction of industry and other bomb damage to the landscape. I am going to look at the book "Sutherland: the wartime drawings" by Roberto Tassi for more information and examples of images.

This link also seems to be a good source of information:
http://collection.britishcouncil.org/collection/artist/5/18430

The link below shows a video which offers an explanation of how Sutherland's painting "Thorn Tree" represents the changing of the British landscape as industrialisation takes over.

http://collection.britishcouncil.org/collection/artist/5/18430/media/30526

This is an image of the painting "Thorn Tree" (1945)

Quote from the artist taken from the link underneath:

“The closeness of opposites in life has always fascinated me. That is to say the tension between opposites. The precarious balanced moment – the hairsbreadth between – beauty & ugliness – happiness & unhappiness – light & shadow.”

http://parkwestgallery.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/artist-birthdays-august-24-graham-sutherland/

More information can be found for this artist on wikipedia through the link below

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Sutherland

John Piper

"At the outbreak of the Second World War, Piper was commissioned by the 'war artists' scheme' to capture the affects of the war on the British landscape. The devastation of the Blitz was easily assimilated to Piper's personal interest in old ruined buildings. He had also lost his eldest brother in the First World War which may have made the commission particularly poignant and enabled him to respond with his deepest emotion. During these years he travelled the country, capturing the atmosphere of places. These scenes do not always directly relate to bomb-damage but reflect, in Piper's unique way, a sense of loss and nostalgia. In 1944 he was appointed Official War Artist."

extract is taken from the Biography from the link below

http://www.portlandgallery.com/artist/John_Piper/bio

This information has fuelled me to research this artist more as it is one of the first Official War Artists I have come across who was based on the home front, concentrating on the impact on the British landscape.

Imperial War Museum

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections-research/about/art-design

The Imperial War Museum houses a collection of posters and art from War Art Schemes. You are able to search through their extensive collection which would be useful for finding information about Official War Artsists during the Second World War.

Archive search for Searle:

 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=searle&items_per_page=10

Provides an extensive list of results

V&A

The Victoria and Albert museum seems to have a lot of information about certain pieces of work by many of the War Artists I'm interested in. This is the link to the site incase more research needs to be done from it for when I am writing the essay.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/

Abram Games

 This books shows examples of Abram Games' propaganda posters during the Second World War.

This image shows a poster of a war time appeal which the whole nation could get involved with to help the war effort. The style has a huge comparison to the horrific images of people at war drawn on the front line. Information about this poster can be found on the link below.

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O122106/poster-our-jungle-fighters-want-socks/

Images from "To the Kwai and Back"

These are images from the book "To the Kwai and Back" which I could possibly use in the essay. The drawings that Searle has done of the prisoners suffering from cholera really show the distress and pain of the war and the terrible conditions that they were forced to live in. It would be interesting to compare these to the art that was based on the Home Front.

Edward Bawden and His Circle

This is another book about Edward Bawden. It may provide me with further information about this artist as well as more examples of his artwork, which may have not been shown in the other book.

Edward Bawden - In the Middle East

This is an intertesting book about the War Artist Edward Bawden. It has a section dedicated to his time work as an Official War Artist in the Middle East during the Second World War. This book also has many examples of his artwork during this time. I think that I will be able to gain alot of fascinating and valuable information about Bawden from this book which may prove useful for my essay.

notes
Taken from Chapter 2 pg 21:
Bawden was one of the first five Official War Artists appointed in 1940. He was posted by the War Artists Advisory Commitee to the Middle East.

pg 22: He met with fellow war artist Anthony Gross. Quote from a letter to his wife, "you would not conceive how exciting it is after nearly twenty months to talk openly about painters and painting, or what it has been like working without that stimulus."
    This demonstrates how the commissioned war artists are taken away from their usual form of practice in order to gain a real sense of the actions of war and what is happening. They made sacrifices to report their information.

Chapter 3 pg 39:
1943, Bawden was positioned in Iraq. He was attatched to the ministry of information and addressed "British Embassy Public Relations Baghdad." He was sent to Persia to collect material for immediate use. He recorded the Aid to Russia supply operation and also recorded an anti-locust campaign in Saudi Arabia.

pg 42
A useful reference of Official War artists also being able to illustrate scenes of peace.
Also, "Edward Bawden's paintings depict not only Iraq in wartime, but also an Iraq that no longer exsists."

"Recording Britain"

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/recording-britain-collection/

"Recording Britain was intended to boost national morale by celebrating the country’s natural beauty and architectural heritage, but it was also a memorial to the war effort itself." This collection was set-up by Sir Kenneth Clark to employ Artists on the Home Front to contribute to a record of Britain at a time of change.

This scheme will be very interesting to research in relation to the war artists work at home, and how it may contrast to the style of work on the front line.

Ronald Searle: To the Kwai and back

"Ronald Searle: To the Kwai and Back. War Drawings from 1939 - 1945" is a book contains the drawing that Searle did during his time as a prisoner of war in Singapore. The drawings act as a visual documentation of the horrid conditions in the camp. I have recently bought this book as it looks so fascinating as a first hand account of the war, which makes it a very different approach to published propaganda posters.

First line of the book: "These pictures were not drawn with brushes made from human hair nor with blood replacing ink, as has been occasionally recounted. But they were made with sweat, fear and, at the outset at least, wide-eyed noble intent."

This quote demonstrates how real the experience is of these War Artists and the bravery that is involved to record the war visually first hand.

A Word From the Artist: "During my captivity I had, in a somewhat unimaginative and already ambitious way, convinced myself that my mission was to emerge from the various camps, the jungle and finally prison, with a 'significant' pictorial record that would reveal to the world something of what happened during the lost and more or less unphotographed years"

John Grierson's Counter-Propaganda

http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/second_world_war/clips/17404/

This link takes you to the CBC Digital archives website and shows a video and shows a short clip of the documentary "The War for Men's Minds" (1941) from the National film Board of Canada with an interview of John Grierson on his approach of  counter- propaganda.