Alan Sorrell: RAF encampment

Alan Sorrell: RAF encampment - on Art WW I

Enquire

£1,350

Alan Sorrell:
RAF encampment
Framed (ref: 3705)
Pencil and pen and ink squared in red crayon

15 x 25 1/2 (38 x 64.8 cm)

Tags: Alan Sorrell crayon ink pen and ink pencil architecture WW2 ex catalogue Seventy-seven pictures by Alan Sorrell

Provenance: The Artist's Family

During the Second World War Sorrell served in the RAF from 1940, where he was able to make first-hand visual records of the daily life in the Air Force. 26 of these pictures were acquired by the War Artists' Advisory Committee. He especially took delight in recording the dynamic landforms of the airfields where he was based.

The broad titled viewpoints that resulted from hours of flying would later inform his reconstruction drawings which were often constructed around a birds-eye view.

(detail) Construction of a runway at an Aerodrome, (copyright:The IWM).

As was his practice with mural paintings, Sorrell made sketches and preparatory drawings, which led to the finished reconstruction drawings. These works were commissioned by the Ministry of Works (English, Welsh and Scottish Heritage), The

Illustrated London News, television.

When he enrolled in the RAF he refused to work on terrain models of cities he considers of "irreplaceable artistic importance", what he later referred to as his "one man mutiny".