Object: Recording Britain

Title:

Recording Britain

Object name(s):

Watercolour

Brief description:

This watercolour shows the view across the mouth of the River Deben from Bawdsey to Felixstowe. The horizon is extremely low, with the sky taking up much of the sheet. Three boats rest on the shore; a sailboat floats in the water, tied to the pier. Two small clusters of people stand among the boats. On the opposite shore, a few small houses and Felixstowe's Martello Tower are visible.

Collection:

Victoria and Albert Museum

Associated concept:

Recording Britain Collection

Associated concept:

Paintings

Content - concept:

ferries

Content - concept:

rivers

Content - concept:

martello towers

Content - concept:

topographical views

Content - event name:

Second World War

Content - place:

Bawdsey

Content - place:

River Deben

Content - place:

Suffolk

Credit line:

Given by the Pilgrim Trust

Current reproduction location:

https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AW7550/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg

Location type:

Thumbnail

Dimension:

Height

Dimension measurement unit:

in

Dimension value:

12.50

Dimension:

Width

Dimension measurement unit:

in

Dimension value:

20.25

Inscription content:

'Martin Hardie'

Inscription interpretation:

Signed by the artist, lower left

Material:

watercolour

Material:

paper

Object history note:

This is one of the few Recording Britain watercolours personally given to the Museum by the artist. Martin Hardie had worked at the V&A since 1898, eventually becoming Keeper of the Print Department, a post he held 1921-1935. Hardie was a prolific writer, and his massive Water-colour Painting in Britain remains a cornerstone in the study of the subject. His watercolours themselves are much less well known today. The 'Recording Britain' collection of topographical watercolours and drawings was made in the early 1940s during the Second World War. In 1940 the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime, part of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, launched a scheme to employ artists to record the home front in Britain, funded by a grant from the Pilgrim Trust. It ran until 1943 and some of the country's finest watercolour painters, such as John Piper, Sir William Russell Flint and Rowland Hilder, were commissioned to make paintings and drawings of buildings, scenes, and places which captured a sense of national identity. Their subjects were typically English: market towns and villages, churches and country estates, rural landscapes and industries, rivers and wild places, monuments and ruins. Northern Ireland was not covered, only four Welsh counties were included, and a separate scheme ran in Scotland. The scheme was known as 'Recording the changing face of Britain' and was established by Sir Kenneth Clark, then the director of the National Gallery. It ran alongside the official War Artists' Scheme, which he also initiated. Clark was inspired by several motives: at the outbreak of war in 1939, there was a concern to document the British landscape in the face of the imminent threat of bomb damage, invasion, and loss caused by the operations of war. This was allied to an anxiety about changes to the landscape already underway, such as the rapid growth of cities, road building and housing developments, the decline of rural ways of life and industries, and new agricultural practices, which together contributed to the idea of a 'vanishing Britain'. Clark also wanted to help artists, and the traditional forms of British art such as watercolour painting, to survive during the uncertain conditions of wartime. He in turn was inspired by America's Federal Arts Project which was designed to give artists employment during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Over 1500 works were eventually produced by 97 artists, of whom 63 were specially commissioned. At the time the collection had a propaganda role, intended to boost national morale by celebrating Britain's landscapes and heritage. Three exhibitions were held during the war at the National Gallery, and pictures from the collection were sent on touring exhibitions and to galleries all around the country. After the war, the whole collection was given to the V&A by the Pilgrim Trust in 1949, and it was documented in a four volume catalogue published between 1946 and 1949. For many years the majority of the collection was on loan to councils and record offices in each county, until recalled by the V&A around 1990. The pictures now form a memorial to the war effort, and a unique record of their time.

Object history note:

Because of its strategic position on the coast, Bawdsey was the site of an important Chain Home radar station from 1937 which was used for, among other things, monitoring the launch of V2 rockets.

Object name:

Watercolour

Object number:

E.2126-1949

Object production date:

ca. 1940

Date - association:

painted

Date - earliest / single:

1935-01-01

Date - latest:

1944-12-31

Object production person:

Hardie, Martin

Person's association:

painter (artist)

Object production place:

Bawdsey

Place association:

painted

Physical description:

This watercolour shows the view across the mouth of the River Deben from Bawdsey to Felixstowe. The horizon is extremely low, with the sky taking up much of the sheet. Three boats rest on the shore; a sailboat floats in the water, tied to the pier. Two small clusters of people stand among the boats. On the opposite shore, a few small houses and Felixstowe's Martello Tower are visible.

Reproduction number:

2006AW7550

Reproduction number:

2008BV7826

Responsible department/section:

PDP

Technique:

watercolour drawing

Technique:

Watercolour drawing on paper

Text:

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O119522/

Text reason:

Collections online record

Text:

The ferry of the tiny hamlet of Bawdsey, on the mouth of the River Deben in Suffolk, looks across to Felixstowe and its Martello Tower, a relic of the Napoleonic wars. Bawdsey itself played an important role in the defense of Britain during the Second World War: uphill from the ferry stood a Chain Home radar station, one of fifteen that defended the coast. Martin Hardie is better known today as a writer and art historian (including a 37-year stint in the Prints & Drawings Department at the V&A, of which he became keeper in 1921) than as an artist. He personally donated several of his Recording Britain watercolours to the V&A.

Text reason:

Summary description

User's reference:

Reference:

Catalogue of Drawings in the ‘Recording Britain’ Collection given by the Pilgrim Trust to the Victoria and Albert Museum published by the Victoria and Albert Museum, Prints, Drawings and Paintings Department, 1951.

User's reference:

Reference:

Palmer, Arnold, ed. Recording Britain. London: Oxford University Press, 1946-49. Vol 2: Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, Northhamptonshire and Rutlandshire, Norfolk, Yorkshire. Introduction to Suffolk, p.49.

Persistent shareable link for this record: https://museumdata.uk/objects/791f18b9-3c9c-3140-bf70-77d8b6aa4658

Use licence for this record: CC BY-NC

Attribution for this record: https://museumdata.uk/objects/791f18b9-3c9c-3140-bf70-77d8b6aa4658, Victoria and Albert Museum, CC BY-NC

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