//=time() ?>
William Scott painted exceptional nudes and landscapes, but the tabletop bowls and pots and pans remain his trademark: the subject of his pictures towards the end of the Second World War, they were still there in his more minimalist work of the 1970s.
'Barges on the Canal.' (1919) The subject of barges was to fascinate David Bomberg. Brought up in the ghettos of the East End of London where poverty was the norm he felt a natural affinity with the under-privileged, outsider figures, that lived on the barges of London's canals.
Anthony Devas's picture shows models changing backstage at a Norman Hartnell fashion show around 1952. Hartnell was the star of London couture during the interwar years, gaining international fame as dressmaker to the British royal family.
In this picture, Henry Moore's subject is the aged body. He made this drawing of his own hands when he was 81 and suffering from ill-health. 'Hands can convey so much' he said, 'they can beg or refuse... they can be young or old, beautiful or deformed.'
'An Ancient Harbour.' (1923) James Pryde’s love of theatre comes to show in this dramatic interplay of darkness and light, architecture and nature. The human figures, though shown in the foreground, are dwarfed by the scale of their surroundings.
In Sickert's drawing from 1902, Mrs Barrett’s neat hair, fur stole and pearl necklace imply a certain social standing but we know she was a flower seller. The bedstead Sickert kept in his studio is reflected in the mirror so we know this picture was made at 8 Fitzroy Street.
Painted around 1948, the subject of the returning sailor was still pertinent to a Europe that had recently demobilised its armed forces following WW2. The sailor in this work by William Roberts seems to be from the French Marine Nationale according to the red pompom on his cap.
'The Tunneller.' The stalemate situation in the early part of WW1 led to the deployment of tunnel warfare. By mid-1916, the date of this picture by Christopher Nevinson, the British Army had around 25,000 trained tunnellers, mostly volunteers taken from coal mining communities.
'The Sixth Former.' (1969) Well known as a muralist, Fyffe Christie's oil painting and draughtsmanship are less well-known parts of his career but they represent an extraordinary range and inventiveness in figuration and landscape in the pivotal post-war period of Scottish art.
'Miner Emerging from a Stope.' In 1942 Graham Sutherland was commissioned as an Official War Artist to document the industrial work supporting the war effort. One of the chosen sites was Geevor Tin Mine in Cornwall which is shown here.