A Two Year-old Steel Works, 1918 : erected during the War for Messrs. Steel, Peech and Tozer, Ltd., Phoenix Works, Rotherham

image: A view of a steel works that sits next to a river or canal. Directly on the river bank is a box-like concrete building and a long redbrick wall, with men at work on a scaffold at the side of the building. Behind this scene is a large building with numourous red chimneys towards the right, with a railway and a few cranes in front of it.

It is one of a series of paintings commissioned by the British War Memorial Committee set up by the Ministry of Information early in 1918. The Committee developed a scheme to build a ‘Great memorial gallery’ devoted to ‘fighting subjects, home subjects and the war at sea and in the air’. The centre of the scheme was to be a coherent series of paintings based on the dimensions of Uccello’s ‘Battle of San Romano’ in the National Gallery (72 x 125 inches), this size being considered suitable for a commemorative battle painting. While the commissions included some of the most avant-garde British artists of the time, the BWMC advisors saw the scheme placed within the tradition of artistic patronage, influenced by models from the Renaissance. It was intended that both the art and the setting would celebrate national ideals of heroism and sacrifice. The Hall of Remembrance was never completed and the collection was given to the Imperial War Museum.

Ministry of Information commission Scheme 1. Purchased for £150

C.J.H. 1918 (twice)