Paintings

Annie Hill was 12 years old when Mayor painted this portrait. She worked as a half-timer at Horrockses cotton mill, splitting her day between work and school.

It was unusual at the time for working women to have their portraits painted. The painting was carried in the Women’s Sunday march in London in 1908 to represent thousands of working women and children like Annie. It played an important role in the campaign for women’s suffrage, helping to demonstrate that women contributed their labour and taxes to the country and should have a say in the country’s politics.

This self-portrait was probably painted in the 1920s. Patti was a popular Preston born artist who painted the portraits of many local people.

She attended the Slade School of Fine Art, one of the UK’s most prestigious art schools, and was a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, better known as the Suffragettes

‘Serena Reading’ shows the heroine from a poem called ‘Triumphs of Temper’ by William Hayley, a close friend of Romney. The poem tells how Serena became so engrossed in a book that she read all through the night. Daylight is breaking and her candle has burnt down. Romney was born near Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria, but moved to London, where he was the most fashionable portrait painter of his era.

This painting depicts the skeletal remains of a burnt out Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM79 bomber. It was made from a photograph taken after a raid on Castel Benito, an airfield created by the Italian Air Force in Tripoli.

Armstrong was commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee to make two paintings of crashed aircraft. The other is now at Manchester Art Gallery. Called September 1941, it depicts wrecks of British and German fighter planes on the south-coast.

At the outbreak of the War, Bone enlisted with a unit at Leamington Spa to work on camouflage designs aimed at concealing important sites like power stations, factories and air fields. He was made a full-time, salaried War Artist in 1943, filling a post vacated by his father Muirhead, who had been the very first War Artist appointed.

Bone specialised in Admiralty subjects, travelling across the country painting Royal Navy bases, ships and submarines. In 1944 he witnessed the Normandy landings, and recorded Naval activity like this Destroyer. The warship used torpedoes and anti-aircraft guns to protected merchant-ship convoys and battle fleets from attack.

Richards was born in Liverpool, his father George was a World War One veteran. He studied at the Royal College of Art in London for three months before being conscripted into the Army in 1940.

After parachute training and promotion to Captain, he parachuted into Normandy on D-Day. Richards was killed in action on the night of the 5 March 1945, when he drove his jeep into an unmarked mine field in Holland. He was planning to make drawings of the retreating German troops. He told his friend that he was going to paint, what for him, was to be ‘the greatest picture of the war’. He was 25 years old.

Richards served with the Royal Engineers, and in 1941 was billeted at Inglesham, a small village in Wiltshire. This painting, and the one to the right, show the beautiful 13th century church of St John the Baptist at Inglesham.

This smaller painting includes the rectory and nearby Church Farm. In the foreground an Army truck is hidden under camouflage netting. It is thought to be a study for the larger painting, The Minute Halt, which includes soldiers resting at the side of the road. Both paintings helped to get Richards’ work recognised by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee. He later gave them to his mother, signing them Bertie, as he was known by his family.

The Women’s Land Army worked in agriculture, replacing male farm workers who were called up for military service. It was created during the First World War but was reformed at the beginning of the Second World War. By 1944 had over 80,000 members.

Known as ‘Land Girls’, they were critical to Britain’s food production, providing much needed help for farmers across the country.

Bateman came from a farming family in Kendal. He was best known for his paintings of country life and would have been familiar with scenes like this pig shed. The War Artists’ Advisory Committee commissioned artists to document all kinds of war work, at home and overseas.