Alan Sorrell:
Study for Watch Office, RAF Station, circa 1944
Framed (ref: 3814)
Squared and inscribed with measurements
Pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
9 3/4 x 13 3/8 in. (24.8 x 34 cm)
Tags: Alan Sorrell ink pencil watercolour architecture war 1.Master Designs World War II Paintings by British Artists
Provenance: The artist's son, Richard Sorrell
Exhibited: WW2 - War Pictures by British Artists, Morley College London, 28 October -23 November 2016, cat 63.
Literature: Sacha Llewellyn & Richard Sorrell (ed), Alan Sorrell; the Life and Works of an English Neo-Romantic Artist, (Bristol: Sansom & Co.) 2013, p 108-110.
WW2 - War Pictures by British Artists, Edited by Sacha Llewellyn & Paul Liss, July 2016, cat 63, page 100.
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.
This is a study for a painting in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: a bleak scene with clouds of steam and men rushing about amongst very unbeautiful buildings in a picture that Sorrell himself described as ‘extremely sinister and full of foreboding’.
