Leonard Rosoman

Bomb Falling into Water

1942

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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Not on display

Artist
Leonard Rosoman 1913–2012
Medium
Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions
Support: 635 × 762 mm
frame: 800 × 930 × 90 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Presented by the War Artists Advisory Committee 1946
Reference
N05729

Display caption

As a member of the National Fire Service, Rosoman had first-hand experience of fighting fires during German bombing raids. He was stationed in the East End of London, which was especially badly hit. He explained that Bomb Falling into Water was ‘painted in 1942 when I was in the N.F.S. and was the result of night after night fighting fires in the London dock area – bombs were falling into the Thames and into the water in the docks.’

Gallery label, December 2016

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Catalogue entry

N05729 BOMB FALLING INTO WATER 1942

Inscr. ‘Leonard Rosoman’ b.l.
Canvas, 25×30 (64×76).
Presented by the War Artists' Advisory Committee 1946.
Coll: Purchased by the War Artists' Advisory Committee from the Cooling Galleries 1942.
Exh: Civil Defence Artists, Cooling Galleries, May 1942 (21); National War Pictures, National Gallery, 1944; Firemen Artists, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, June–July 1944; Paintings by Firemen Artists, R.A., October 1944 (51); National War Pictures, Glasgow, 1945, and R.A., October–November 1945 (89).

The artist wrote (6 December 1960): ‘It was painted in 1942 when I was in the N.F.S. and was the result of night after night fighting fires in the London dock area - bombs were falling into the Thames and into the water in the docks.’

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II

British War Art

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