Dunkirk Evacuation

Recruit's Progress: Medical Inspection

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Catalogue number
  • Art.IWM ART LD 2909
Display status
IWM North
Production date
1942
Subject period
Materials
  • medium: oil
  • support: canvas
Dimensions
  • Support: Height 510 mm
  • Support: Width 685 mm
  • Frame: Height 665 mm
  • Frame: Width 845 mm
  • Frame: Depth 50 mm
Alternative Names
  • object category: painting
Creator
Category
art

License Image

This item is available to share and reuse under the terms of the IWM Non Commercial Licence.

Object description

image: New recruits are lined up for inspection; all are stripped to the waist. The inspector sits at a table, head leaning on an elbow, while a recruit faces him, arms in the air and trousers round his ankles. Foreground right, a recruit, full clothed and nervous, talks to an official.

Label

The new recruit, all unease and squirming, attempts to talk his way out of the inspection. The painting, the first of a series of four, shows how individual uncertainties were pushed to the limits in the face of public need and was a reflection of Weight's own experiences. Its humour made the imagery acceptable to the War Artists Advisory Committee: an earlier painting of a London trolley bus attacked in broad daylight by German fighter planes had been rejected since it was thought it might lower public morale.

History note

War Artists Advisory Committee commission

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