SOLD


Mervyn Peake:
Glass-blowers producing cathode-ray tubes for radar use, 1943
Framed (ref: 2605)

Signed

Gouache

20 1/4 x 27 in. (51.5 x 68.5 cm)

Tags: Mervyn Peake gouache industrial war work WW2 bis

In 1943, the War Artists’ Advisory Committee commissioned Peake to paint the glass-blowers in the factory of Chance Brothers in Birmingham. The painting shows the glass-blowers gathering molten glass as part of the production of cathode-ray oscillation tubes; Chance Brothers was the only company in Britain that had developed the technique of blowing this complex shape, producing 7,000 tubes every week. Peake was fascinated by the manufacturing process and the balletic skills of the work force.This work is closely related to Peake’s drawing Glass-blowers ‘Gathering’ from the Furnace, 1943 (ImperialWar Museum, IWM ART LD 2851).

Invalided out of military service, Peake joined the Design, Poster and Visualising Group at the Ministry of Information in 1942, to work on a series of propaganda illustrations, The Horrors ofWar. During the war, his first two volumes of poetry were published and he started writing the first book of the Gormenghast trilogy, Titus Groan, for which he is best known today.