'The Fields of Battle - Contemporary Paintings & Drawings of World War One Battlefields' by Robert Perry

Robert Perry RBSA had been working in the Somme Battlefields since 1992. In an effort to pick up some of the fading “echoes through time” of the terrible events of 1916, Robert lived on the battlefields throughout January and February 2000, making studies, drawings and paintings, from size A4 to 4ft x 8ft (1.2 x 2.4 metres), of the trench systems, emplacements and shell-craters in locations such as Aveluy or Mametz Wood. Sometimes this was in daylight, but frequently paraffin lamps were used to provided eerie illumination at night-time. the time of much clandestine activity by troops living in the trenches. Robert's field notes and photographs were incorporated into the information panels of an exhibition. This also featured family archive material of a seascape painted by Billy Warren, Robert's Great Uncle, three years before he was killed in the Battle of the Somme at the age of 19. The exhibition itself was commissioned by Staffordshire County Arts Service and exhibited at the Shire Hall Gallery (Stafford), followed by smaller exhibitions at Brampton Museum, Newcastle-under-Lyme and the Museum of Cannock Chase. The paintings and sketches now form part of the Staffordshire County Museum collection.