Spotted in Feb 2020 (post backdated to 2019!) by Hayden Bruce in Perth, WA, is this full-on aircraft graffiti. Not immediately obvious is that it’s an adaptation from one of the many box-top artworks from the Revell 1/72 kit 04678 of the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 ‘Condor‘. Impressive effort! Anyone with more info on it, please…
Tag: Original Art
Back in Short Trousers
We’ve seen the work of the great American magazine illustrator Leyendecker here and here, so it’s appropriate we feature another great American illustrator, the one and only Norman Rockwell, on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, on 15 December 1945, after the end of World War Two. Like most of Rockwell’s art, it…
Man & Prop
An aquatint artwork today. Aviation seems to have only made the margins of fine art, like most forms of modern transport. Here’s an example which could almost be in a Renaissance collection. Entitled Propeller, 1934, William Heaslip, Associated American Artists, etching and aquatint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum (link). Artistically, it’s an interesting composition….
Hindermost
Today’s something different again. Here’s the postwar painting entitled ‘Bomber Crash’ by Australian Frank Hinder, who was working with the Camouflage Wing of the Royal Australian Engineers during World War Two. At first it seems to be a semi-abstract fire image, the details become evident as the picture is read. Held in the Australian War…
Ravilious’ Ark
Today a look at the art of official war artist Eric Ravilious. Having been researching his fascinating artist, I’ve found it very hard to know what to focus on, so here I’ve limited the post to one aspect of his war work, his watercolours of the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. First is…
Green-Blue Night
Today’s art is an oil painting that would pass perfectly well as a piece of fine art in a chiaroscuro style. Actually it’s a piece for a magazine published in 1924 by the one-eyed artist Stockton Mulford – a biography of him here. Despite the beautiful colour, it was printed in monochrome, as shown here….
Hardy Coton Vimy
Today we have a pair of artworks on the Vickers Vimy, an aircraft type designed for the Great War, but made a name as a record setter worldwide. The first image is by the late, great aviation artist Wilf Hardy, a particular favourite painter of myself and my Aeroplane Monthly colleague Ian Bott. A 450mm…
Thake’s Shapes
Eric Thake (see a brief earlier post here) was an Australian official war artist working with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in the latter part of the Pacific War. Unlike many other war artists, he chose to make a significant proportion of his formal, main output as depictions of aircraft wreckage. Almost uniquely, Thake…
Forward Pilot
A pilot sculptural bust, near life-size today. Listed by the vendors as a ‘Rare large bronze sculpture of a pilot. Marble base. Excellent condition. Signed in the bronze and engraved “bronze”. Circa 1930. 35cm 30cm 18.5cm. Created by Russian sculptor Ghanu H. Gantcheff. Gantcheff was schooled in Paris and worked in the early 20th century…
Bay Window
Today’s artwork is an evidently quick drawing from his sketchbook by Australian official war artist Eric Thake aboard a Consolidated Catalina, depicting a crewman on lookout in the portside gun blister. I was looking for other Thake artworks*, but this one jumped out at me as an exceptional work as a sketch. In a National…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 