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| Anna Airy, Shop for Machining 15 inch Shells |
At age 17 she enrolled in the Slade School of Fine Art. Slade offered art classes to men and women working in the same classroom, unusual at the time. Teachers such as Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer encouraged a form of Impressionism founded on good drawing and accurate perspective.
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| Anna Airy, An Aircraft Assembly Shop, Hendon |
She often labored under dangerous conditions. In painting a shell forge, she faced the extreme heat of red-hot shells. "No matter where I stood," she said, "I'd have some rolled to within a few feet of me. I never felt such heat." The ground became so hot that her shoes were burnt off her feet.
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| Anna Airy, A Shell Forge at a National Projectile Factory, Hackney Marshes, London, 1918 |
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| Anna Airy |
in 1951, and she exhibited in the Royal Academy Exhibitions and the Paris Salon for many years.
-----Anna Airy on Wikipedia
Online article: The First World War Art of Anna Airy, Imperial War Museum
Online article: War art: Shop for machining 15-inch shells
Thanks, Blair Updike for your article in the Portrait Society Journal
Related post: Heinrich Kley's Demons of Krupp
5 comments:
These are just lovely. Thank you for sharing this info about an artist doing what she did at a time when many must have discouraged her. From her photo, it looks as if she must have had a strong will and maybe a sense of humor?
I love the rendering of the red hot metals in fiery orange. What stamina and fortitude for such beautiful works. From an era I feel so distant from, sitting in front of a computer while back then such physical labor. I gather folks then didn't think about the labor, it was just what was necessary and called for at the time. My grandfather worked at a steel stamping forge, working in 15 minute shifts wearing burlap soaked in water so the hot fragments wouldn't burn them. Ms. Airy's descriptive accounts make you feel like you are there!
Amazing, just wonderful stuff!
Amazing intricate stuff!
Reminds me somewhat of Adolf Menzel's pioneering "Eisenwalzwerk" industrial painting.
Dunno if I'd want to have those 15inch hot glowing 1st world-war-shells hanging on my wall.
But the way they are rendered....perhaps.
I've always loved these ammunition factory paintings by Anna. She was able to capture these scenes, which are technically complex, with a looseness and confidence of a masters touch. Her paintings are full of life and energy just like those shell casings.
It was so great getting to hear the back story of what she went through to paint these.
I've often thought she was one of the finest war artists of that period, and one of the most overlooked.
Great post James!
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