Foreign Service-men in Hyde Park: Early summer, 1940

image: The scene in a park people with figures, most of whom are dressed in one uniform or another. They stand talking, or are seen walking in pairs.

Kenneth Rowntree, Foreign Service-men in Hyde Park: Early summer, 1940 Kenneth Rowntree, CEMA Canteen Concert, Isle of Dogs, London, E14, 1941 Kenneth Rowntree was an artist whose Quaker background led to him registering as a CO. He was commissioned by the WAAC to produce works that focused primarily on civilian scenes, partly as a result of his CO status. Here he depicts differing aspects of the British home front. The first shows Hyde Park in mid-1940, with London a cosmopolitan staging post for the multinational Allied military personnel assembling there. By contrast, working class men eat and listen to a concert in the less glamorous surrounds of a canteen in London's East End.

War Artists Advisory Committee commission