Less hairy | Eric Ravilious, at the Fine Art Society

Fire Control Room, 1941, courtesy of The Fine Art Society

Soon after WW2 broke out in 1939, the watercolourist and commercial illustrator Eric Ravilious applied to become an official war artist, and this application – to his great delight – was accepted in January 1940. He was given the rank of Honorary Captain in the Royal Marines, and for once in his life he wasn’t skint. In the following two-and-a-half years, frequently on the move from one location to another, he produced some of the best work of his career. 

Some of his assignments were more dangerous than others. In May 1940 he sailed on HMS Highlander to the Arctic Circle, where he witnessed heavy fighting in the Battle of the Atlantic. A year later he was billeted to Dover, where he was subjected to nightly bombing raids. 

Other jobs were less hairy. Perhaps safest of all was in the Home Security bunkers under Whitehall, where, in the spring of 1941, he was commissioned to depict the newly developed control rooms. From this space the Ministry of Home Security organised air raid precautions and collated bomb damage. The above painting – fresh to market having been bought from a private collection by the Fine Art Society – is from that series.

It's called Fire Control Room, and the information on the blackboard is presumably registering the enemy bombing activity in the different Blitz-hit sectors, largely in this case in East London and Essex. Like most of the paintings in the series, it is unpeopled, though the coat hung on the coffin-like filing cabinet – rather hauntingly – attests to recent human presence. This is typical of much of Ravilious’ WW2 oeuvre, highlighting the workspaces of war. The chalk lines bring to mind the artist’s peacetime Downland paths, and the perspective of the lettering on the blackboard he has achieved is masterly, in stark contrast to the hastily sketched table and map. Is it an unfinished work? Discuss.

Letters to his wife Tirzah reveal that Ravilious was excited to be sent on assignment to Iceland, in August 1942. Shortly after arriving at RAF Kaldadames, he was invited to join the crew of a search-and-rescue mission. The Lockheed Hudson aircraft failed to return to base: its wreckage, and the bodies of crew and passenger, have never been found.

Ravilious’s work is worth seeing in the flesh: Towner Eastbourne holds the largest collection, and permanently displays a selection in a dedicated room; 50 of the war works are in the vaults of the Imperial War Museum; the Fry Gallery in Saffron Waldon also owns a good number. Last year Foxtrot Films released a highly acclaimed documentary about the artist’s life and death, directed by Margy Kinmonth, titled Eric Ravilious, Drawn to War. Fire Control Room will be shown by The Fine Art Society at British Art Fair 2023.