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Weight wrote to the WAAC in December 1939 asking for work as a war artist. At first the possibility of his making pictures of east coast shipping convoys was discussed, but then (13) it was decided that he would depict "bombing in a suburban district with people still going about their daily affairs", commissioned for 25 guineas in May/June 1941. By the end of July, he had submitted 'It Happened to Us' (described at (18), but the Committee felt it did not depict ordinary life carrying on, and rejected the picture. Instead, Weight offered LD 1544, of which a description is at (26) and (28).
In March 1942, LD 1872 was purchased for 20 guineas (29), details at (31). By now, Weight had been called up and was at Warminster.
Helen Roeder passed on to the Committee Weight's idea for 'The Recruit's Progress' (IWM:ART LD 2909-2912) (33), for which Weight wanted some time off to paint. The pictures were commissioned in April 1942 (37) for 35 guineas, but shortly afterwards Weight was reported to be in hospital with a poisoned hand.
Weight's pictures of the zebra escaping from London Zoo during an air raid (LD 2810-2813) were purchased in July 1942 for 30 guineas.
There is then a long gap in the file until Weight was offered a commission for a picture of a "big ordnance factory catastrophe at Hereford" (50). However Weight's Commanding Officer was unwilling to release him. Shortly afterwards, after the death of Albert Richards, Weight was employed to take his place as a salaried War Office artist, in March 1945 (58). A further picture was also suggested, of the dismantling of emergency water tanks (59).
From Weight's time as a war artist in Italy and Greece there is some correspondence and some detail of specific works, at (67) and (73). There are also official typed lists of pictures painted between July 1945 and February 1946 (74), (81).
Postwar correspondence concerns loans to the Arts Council's exhibition 'Four Contemporary British Painters', 1947, and Weight's gift of 'Kozani' (IWM:ART LD 5687) to the Imperial War Museum in September 1947.
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