description
Object description
image: A wine-glass shaped machine with two handles on either side. A row of small metal antennae are mounted across the
top of the machine, pointing up towards the sky. The object appears to be standing on the deck of a ship; the side of the boat in the
foreground.
Label
Leonard Rosoman signed up with the Auxiliary Fire Service before the outbreak of war, and was mobilised as soon as war
was declared. In 1944 the War Artists Advisory Committee offered him a commission as an artist attached to the British Pacific Fleet. He
left for Australia in April the following year, once in Australia he joined the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable that was heading for
Japanese waters. It was here that he became fascinated with the different forms of machinery on board: 'strange devices like Radar
indicators, pom-poms and planes with wings that fold up like moths'.
Label
Leonard Rosoman was a young artist rapidly establishing his reputation when the Second World War broke out. He had signed up with the
Auxiliary Fire Service prior to war and was immediately mobilized in 1939. Rosoman recorded his experiences in his artwork, which displayed
echoes of the Neo-Romanticism of Graham Sutherland but retained a distinctive style. This attracted the WAAC to commission Rosoman to
produce work in the Pacific theatre. Sailing to Australia in April 1945, he attached himself to the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable and
became engrossed in the machinery and weaponry in front of him, much like the 'aerial creatures' of the Battle of Britain had fascinated
Paul Nash. Rosoman was inspired by 'strange devices like Radar indicators…and planes with wings that fold up like moths', clearly addressed
in the oil painting here. The focus is placed firmly on the machinery itself, structures seemingly divorced from human contact amidst the
virulent orange of the Pacific heat.
History note
War Artists Advisory Committee commission
