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| Loading Gantry for PLUTO - Keith Henderson |
That there
Eighth Doctor was on TV the other day doing a short programme about hidden art. This is part of a BBC initiative called
Your Paintings which aims to digitise much of the hidden public art that is either in storage or on display only in private areas of public buildings. The above picture caught my eye because my mother worked on
PLUTO towards the end of the war. The following picture was also interesting because I've walked through the hangar in the scene and it was still full of aircraft. Sad to say they were Nimrods, all of which are now just
piles of grey scrap.
However, the main focus of the programme was an almost forgotten war artist called
Albert Richards who was killed in 1945 at the age of 25 when his jeep ran over a mine as he was trying to find a position to paint a picture of the retreating German Army. Although many of pictures show military subjects, quite a few show the routine side of life in the forces as the one below shows.
Richards' death, (the manner of which reminds me of Robert Capa's demise) is as poignant as that of any of the superstar poets from other conflicts and obviously left the Art World without a great talent. All of this comes about because a surreal self-portrait of Richards has been put on display in the recent refresh of the increasingly-inaccurately-named Permanent Gallery at
The Walker in Liverpool. What with that and the new
Magritte exhibition at The Tate (20 quid to you mate), we are really being spoiled for culture in this town at the moment. It's not all Shell Suits you know. Anyway one more picture from the war to finish with.
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| Multi-spindle Drilling Machines on Aero-Engine Work - A.S.Finlayson |
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