Up Close: Frank Wootton's "Harts Over the Himalayas"

Frank Anthony Albert Wootton (1914-1998) painted landscapes and horses, but for me he's noted for his illustrations of automobiles and airplanes. In particular, he was highly skilled at depicting the effects of light, shadow and reflections on shiny metallic surfaces such as can be found on cars and planes.

His brief Wikipedia entry is here. A more extensive treatment can be found in his obituary in the Independent. I wrote about his poster art here.

In October I visited the Royal Air Force Museum London located at the former Hendon aerodrome north of town. Besides aircraft and support vehicles there was a small gallery of aviation paintings, several by Wootton. The one I focus on in this post is titled "Harts Over the Himalayas" (c. 1967) that shows three Hawker Hart biplane bombers in the north of India during the 1930s. Closely related to the Hart was the Hawker Fury fighter that in turn was an ancestor of the famous Hawker Hurricane fighter that comprised the bulk of Britain's interceptors during the 1940 Battle of Britain.

Below are images of Wootton's Hart painting.

Gallery

Image of the painting via the museum's Web site.  Click on this and the other images to enlarge.

A detail photographed by me.  Conditions were poor due to lighting in the area along with the protective cover on the painting.  A smear of reflected light is at the lower left and the darker area to its right of that is my shadow.  Keep these in mind when evaluating Wootton's technique as shown in this image and the one below.

A closer view of his capture of the metal covered portion of the fuselage.  Not hard-edge as some aviation artists are prone to do -- freer and slightly impressionistic.  Contrast this to his treatment of the fabric-covered part of the fuselage beginning abaft of the lower wing.  At least one Hart exists, and can be found in the museum.  I do not know if Wootton was able to use it as a model for the painting or it he relied on period photos of Harts --- most likely the latter.  I also strongly suspect that his treatment of the fuselage surfaces and other parts of the aircraft was from his imagination honed by years of depicting planes of many types.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Georges van Zevenberghen, Belgian Inspired by Chardin

Image
As the title of this post mentions, Georges Antoine Van Zevenberghen (1877-1968), was presumably inspired by Chardin's paintings. Well, that's what this nearly-worthless French Wikipedia entry mentions: " Il partit ensuite pour Paris en 1903 où il admira les œuvres du peintre du xviiie siècle Jean Siméon Chardin qui le marquèrent durablement. " It seems that van Zevenberghen spent most of his long life in Belgium, enduring periods of German occupation in both World Wars. His main travels apparently were to Paris. The entry also notes: " En 1933, il devint professeur à l'Académie royale des beaux-arts de Bruxelles, fonction qu'il remplit jusqu'en 1948. " So he was regarded highly enough to become a professor in the Academy. Not many of his paintings can be found on the Internet. They are generally solidly done. There is one that stands out, however, as can be seen below. Gallery La repasseuse - 1907 The earliest of his paintings that I coul
Read more

Walter Gotschke Illustrates Adler

Image
Walter Gotschke (1912-2000) is considered by many automobile art fans as one of the very best in that field. Some background regarding him can be found here and here . I wrote about him here , but might have overstated things when I asserted that he was self-taught. Gotschke was trained in architecture, so must have received some basic training in drawing and watercolor (the latter commonly used for presentations in those days). His career until he went blind in his early 70s was as a commercial illustrator specializing in automotive subjects. Some of this was for advertising, other works were commissioned as editorial material for magazines. The latter were usually racing scenes created with pen, watercolor and gouache (as best I can tell), often done in an impressionistic, almost slapdash manner. Below are some examples that appeared in Automobile Quarterly , a horizontal format hardbound publication (Volume 15, No. 4, 1977). Gotschke's work was in conjunction with an arti
Read more

Tom Purvis' Austin Reed Posters

Image
Tom Purvis (1888-1959) was a leading British poster artist during the 1920s and 1930s, especially after his style evolved into simplified shapes with areas of flat color and no outlining. Purvis' Wikipedia entry is here , but as of the time this post was drafted (late December 2017), it was not very informative. More biographical information can be found here , but you will need to scroll down to find it. Although he worked for a number of clients, he is best known for his railroad posters and those for Austin Reed, a clothier. Both Austin Reed and Purvis were at their peak when the posters shown below were created. Purvis moved on to portrait work and religious painting in the years following World War 2. Austin Reed went bankrupt in 2016 and its remains were acquired by Edinburgh Woolen Mill. As I write this, there are no Austin Reed stores in London. Gallery For most of its existence, Austin Reed's flagship store was located at the lower end of Regent Street, not far fr
Read more