Details

Object type

painting

Title

Pilot and Navigator Confer

Artist/Maker

Keith Henderson artist

Culture/School

Scottish

Place Associated

Britain, Scotland (place made)

Date

1940

Materials

oil on canvas

Dimensions

framed: 1070 x 920 x 50 mm;unframed: 1016 mm x 762 mm

Description

A view into the cockpit of RAF aircraft Lockheed Hudson depicting the navigator leaving his desk behind the pilot to have direct conversation with him. Both men are wearing yellow life preservers known among RAF crew as ‘Mae West’ nicknamed after American actress. Signed at lower right.

Official government-sponsored schemes were established in Britain to support artists in documenting both world wars. The War Artist Advisory Committee (WAAC), chaired by the director of the National Gallery Sir Kenneth Clark, was established during the Second World War and engaged over four hundred artists on full-time or part-time contracts, including Stanley Spencer, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, L. S. Lowry and Evelyn Dunbar.

As well as serving us today as non-military testimonies of conflict and fascinating documents of war time events, paintings such as Keith Henderson’s Pilot and Navigator Confer are also very important as works of art in their own right. In this image, Henderson takes us on board of flying Lockheed Hudson aircraft, directly into the cockpit, where navigator delivers message to the aircraft’s pilot, instructing him on rout or airspeed, or perhaps informing him of any hazards to be avoided. Henderson’s use of luminous palette as well as bright blue sky with white clouds and calm expressions in soldiers’ faces place the situation outside of the immediate danger of air battle. What we are witnessing here is perhaps a routine patrol flight. The primary use of Lockheed Hudson by RAF was as maritime patrol aircraft, although it was Hudson MK I that became the first RAF plane to shoot down a German aircraft in the early stages of WW2 on 8 October 1939.

Keith Henderson was one of the first two artists, along with Paul Nash, who was appointed as a full-time salaried artist to the Air Ministry by the WAAC. In early 1940 he was sent to work at RAF bases in Scotland but was frustrated to find that artist William Rothenstein had begun working there independently, painting portraits of airmen. As a result Henderson focussed on painting 'views and hangars'. He was disappointed that his six-month commission was not renewed. His letters are held by the Imperial War Museum.

Credit Line/Donor

Presented by the War Artists Advisory Commission through the Imperial War Museum, 1948

ID Number

2742

Location

Kelvingrove Picture Promenade