Pen and ink

17" x 10" - 43 x 25.5 cm.

Inscribed with caption

"Enemy Aviator (beginning to realise) 'Himmel ! Surely I the zone of fire approaching be.' "Or the English version - "Aviator (beginning to realise) 'Surely I must be approaching the zone of fire.' "

Heath Robinson's style of illustration was so  original that his name has become a byword for a design or construction that is ‘ingeniously or ridiculously over-complicated’ (Oxford English Dictionary).  Know  by the popular press as the ‘Gadget King’ his illustrations evolved around his invention of  contraptions that mocked the products of the industrial age.