Gun Pit: AA Battery, Upnor

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Ministry of Defence, Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich

Roland Vivian Pitchforth was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire and studied there and in Leeds up to 1915. After the First World War, he returned to Leeds, then won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art (RCA, 1921–1925). Until 1939 he taught at Camberwell and Clapham Schools of Art and the RCA. He joined the London Artists' Association and the London Group in the late 1920s. As an Official War Artist in the Second World War, Pitchforth worked for the Ministry of Information and Home Security, drawing RAF activities, boat yards, factories, control rooms and tanks. He witnessed the Burma campaign in the Far East in 1945, then briefly lived in South Africa. On his return, he taught art and became a Royal Academician (1953).

Places

England, Upnor, Kent

Subjects

WW2 art, townscape/cityscape, shell, man, military uniform, helmet, cannon, anti-aircraft shell, soldier, World War II

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), watercolour (as artists materials), watercolour (as object name)

Artist

Roland Vivian Pitchforth (1895 - 1982)

Title

Gun Pit: AA Battery, Upnor

Date

1943

Medium

Watercolour on paper

Dimensions

height: 58.10 cm, width: 80.00 cm

Acquisition

Presented via the Imperial War Museum, War Artists' Advisory Committee, April 1946

Inscription

bl: Pitchforth 45. ; verso, tc: Gun Pit AA Batt / 'Upnor

GAC number

171