Bernard Hailstone
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Bernard Hailstone | |
|---|---|
 Auxiliary Fireman Bernard Hailstone attaches a hose to a fire hydrant, somewhere in London, c 1940 | |
| Born | Bernard Hailston 1910 |
| Died | 1987 |
| Nationality | English |
Bernard Hailstone (1910–1987) was an English painter, best known for his Second World War portraits of transport and civil defence workers.
Career
Hailstone belongs to the group of early 20th-century artists whose best-known work was done during the Second World War. After education at the Judd School, Tonbridge, Hailstone attended Goldsmith's college School of Art, under Clive Gardiner, then the Royal Academy Schools, with James Bateman and Walter Westley Russell.[citation needed]
At the beginning of the Second World War, Hailstone felt the need to incorporate his artistic contribution to the war effort with more physical sacrifices. He therefore joined the Auxiliary Fire Service and witnessed at first hand the horrific destruction caused by bombing during the Blitz. He recorded some of these scenes in his paintings. In 1941 the War Artists' Advisory Committee,WAAC, commissioned Hailstone to paint civil defence subjects. He supplemented these works with portraits of his colleagues in the fire services and other war workers. His portrait of W. M. Ladbrooke, Able Seaman, Merchant Navy (National Maritime Museum, London), painted following a visit to the Merchant Navy convalescent home in Limpsfield, Surrey around 1943, embodies sympathy for the heroic yet vulnerable sailor.[citation needed] Following his release from the fire services, Hailstone spent time painting portraits of transport and civil defence workers. In 1943 WAAC assigned him to the Ministry of War Transport. He moved to Hull, working mainly around the docks there, where he continued to record the effects of the war from a civilian perspective. One such work is his Big Ben the Bargee, showing a bargeman and his wife and completed in June 1943 (National Maritime Museum, London). Throughout the rest of the war Hailstone travelled through Algiers, Malta and southern Italy, recording the activities of the Merchant Navy in a similar, sympathetic vein. In June 1945, Hailstone was transferred to the Ministry of Information to record the work of the South East Asia Command. The paintings he produced of Lord Louis Mountbatten and key members of his staff are now in the Imperial War Museum, London.[1][2]
After the war Hailstone had a very successful career as a portrait painter. A gregarious, outgoing man, Hailstone went on to paint Sir Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier, Paul Mellon - he worked a lot in America - and members of the Royal family, but he as happily painted ordinary members of the public.[citation needed] Hailstone moved to Hadlow, Kent. In 1951, he saved the tower and some ancillary buildings of Hadlow Castle from demolition.[3]
References
- ^ Imperial War Museum. "War artists archive:Bernard Hailstone". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 29 October 2013.
- ^ Brain Foss (2007). War paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain, 1939-1945. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10890-3.
- ^ "Hadlow Castle". Lost Heritage. Retrieved 8 December 2009.
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