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Pulham
Details
Sir John Lavery, R.H.A., R.A., R.S.A. (1856-1941)
Pulham
signed 'J. Lavery' (lower left), signed again, inscribed and dated 'PULHAM/JOHN LAVERY/1918' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm.)
Pulham
signed 'J. Lavery' (lower left), signed again, inscribed and dated 'PULHAM/JOHN LAVERY/1918' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm.)
Provenance
The artist's studio; 1946 to Mrs Katherine FitzGerald and thence by descent.
Literature
K. McConkey, Sir John Lavery, Edinburgh, 1999, p. 142, illustrated p. 176.
Lavery took up his appointment as an Official War Artist in August 1917, with a Joint Naval and Military Permit, giving access to bases, munitions factories and harbours of strategic importance. He immediately set off north to paint ordnance factories at Newcastle upon Tyne, the coastal defences at Tynemough and the naval bases on the Firth of Forth at Granton and North Queensferry. Returning south he was recalled to the Admiralty in December and given a clearer brief to concentrate upon Naval operations. This took him in the spring of 1918 to air stations and fortified ports in the home counties and East Anglia, where the present work was painted.
It must be said that from the commencement of the war Lavery was filled with enthusiasm. He and Hazel returned from Ireland immediately and he painted what must be one of the first war pictures, The Green Park, December 1914 (untraced) showing the military camp which had transformed the park behind the Ritz. By this time he had the hair-brained idea of joining up and taking a fully-equipped motor-van to paint the Western Front. He was one of the first artists to be attracted to the new theatre of war in the air and in 1915, without a permit, he painted Kite Balloons, Roehampton (Imperial War Museum, no. 1262). Weeks before he took up his appointment, he portrayed the first daylight bombing raid on London by 21 German 'Gotha' bi-planes in My Studio Window, 7th July 1917 (Ulster Museum, Belfast). He claimed that using his influence with Lord Derby and others, he was instrumental in establishing the Official War Artists' Scheme in the Ministry of Information.
Visiting Pulham St Mary, Norfolk the following spring, Lavery was confronted by the long hangers containing R23 'Rigids', torpedo-shaped airships which were being used for coastal defence and submarine patrols over the North Sea. The R23 and R26 airships first arrived at the base in September 1917. The R23 had a gun slung under its hull and it often patrolled in tandem with Sopwith Camels, one of which is likely to be the aircraft in the sky to the right of the airship in the present canvas. The base at Pulham, initially for 100 Royal Navy personnel, had been established in 1915. By the end of the war this had risen to over 3,000 men and women and Pulham was being used for research and development, and for the construction of airships. Two large steel-framed sheds, seen in the present canvas, had been added for this purpose in 1917. 'Rigids', as their name suggests, had light frames, and were developed by Major G. Herbert Scott and others, from drawings of a German Zepplin shot down in Essex. The long hangers were 90 feet high, and were protected by huge wooden doors that were so heavy they could only be opened with the aid of a tank - seen in Lavery's Rigids at Pulham, R23 Type, (fig. 1, Imperial War Museum, London, no. 1256).
After the war, in 1919, the intrepid aviators of Pulham were among those who flew an airship across the Atlantic and back. The base continued in use throughout the twenties until after the celebrated crash of the R101 in 1931 at Beauvais. Thereafter no further development for military purposes took place. The base was re-commissioned in the Second World War, but was dismantled and returned to farming land after its conclusion. Lavery's visit coincided with the highpoint of its strategic importance. On these official sorties, he habitually made second versions or other paintings that were not intended to be part of the commission. In the present case, he has walked some distance from the hangers beyond the runway area in order to capture one of these impressive craft with its escort, in flight. The local children picking wild flowers, unfazed by this demonstration of the latest military technology, were clearly a bonus that could not have been predicted. Surrounded by reports of the latest German push on the Western Front in the spring of 1918, innocent pleasure in a Norfolk meadows continues.
We are very grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for providing the above catalogue entry, and the entry for lot 27.
Lavery took up his appointment as an Official War Artist in August 1917, with a Joint Naval and Military Permit, giving access to bases, munitions factories and harbours of strategic importance. He immediately set off north to paint ordnance factories at Newcastle upon Tyne, the coastal defences at Tynemough and the naval bases on the Firth of Forth at Granton and North Queensferry. Returning south he was recalled to the Admiralty in December and given a clearer brief to concentrate upon Naval operations. This took him in the spring of 1918 to air stations and fortified ports in the home counties and East Anglia, where the present work was painted.
It must be said that from the commencement of the war Lavery was filled with enthusiasm. He and Hazel returned from Ireland immediately and he painted what must be one of the first war pictures, The Green Park, December 1914 (untraced) showing the military camp which had transformed the park behind the Ritz. By this time he had the hair-brained idea of joining up and taking a fully-equipped motor-van to paint the Western Front. He was one of the first artists to be attracted to the new theatre of war in the air and in 1915, without a permit, he painted Kite Balloons, Roehampton (Imperial War Museum, no. 1262). Weeks before he took up his appointment, he portrayed the first daylight bombing raid on London by 21 German 'Gotha' bi-planes in My Studio Window, 7th July 1917 (Ulster Museum, Belfast). He claimed that using his influence with Lord Derby and others, he was instrumental in establishing the Official War Artists' Scheme in the Ministry of Information.
Visiting Pulham St Mary, Norfolk the following spring, Lavery was confronted by the long hangers containing R23 'Rigids', torpedo-shaped airships which were being used for coastal defence and submarine patrols over the North Sea. The R23 and R26 airships first arrived at the base in September 1917. The R23 had a gun slung under its hull and it often patrolled in tandem with Sopwith Camels, one of which is likely to be the aircraft in the sky to the right of the airship in the present canvas. The base at Pulham, initially for 100 Royal Navy personnel, had been established in 1915. By the end of the war this had risen to over 3,000 men and women and Pulham was being used for research and development, and for the construction of airships. Two large steel-framed sheds, seen in the present canvas, had been added for this purpose in 1917. 'Rigids', as their name suggests, had light frames, and were developed by Major G. Herbert Scott and others, from drawings of a German Zepplin shot down in Essex. The long hangers were 90 feet high, and were protected by huge wooden doors that were so heavy they could only be opened with the aid of a tank - seen in Lavery's Rigids at Pulham, R23 Type, (fig. 1, Imperial War Museum, London, no. 1256).
After the war, in 1919, the intrepid aviators of Pulham were among those who flew an airship across the Atlantic and back. The base continued in use throughout the twenties until after the celebrated crash of the R101 in 1931 at Beauvais. Thereafter no further development for military purposes took place. The base was re-commissioned in the Second World War, but was dismantled and returned to farming land after its conclusion. Lavery's visit coincided with the highpoint of its strategic importance. On these official sorties, he habitually made second versions or other paintings that were not intended to be part of the commission. In the present case, he has walked some distance from the hangers beyond the runway area in order to capture one of these impressive craft with its escort, in flight. The local children picking wild flowers, unfazed by this demonstration of the latest military technology, were clearly a bonus that could not have been predicted. Surrounded by reports of the latest German push on the Western Front in the spring of 1918, innocent pleasure in a Norfolk meadows continues.
We are very grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for providing the above catalogue entry, and the entry for lot 27.
Special notice
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