The art of war at a museum in south London

Posted on April 14, 2026 by yamey

ALTHOUGH LONDON’S IMPERIAL War Museum contains a rich collection of objects related to warfare, it also has a fine art gallery in which there are many paintings inspired by, and recording, wars from WW1 onwards. The artworks, mostly paintings, are to be found in the rooms in the Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries on the museum’s third floor.

The paintings and other artworks are mostly by artists, who are now well-known, such as, to mention only a few: Joan Miro, Paul Nash, Eileen Agar, Laura Knight, Percy Wyndham-Lewis, John Piper, Eric Ravilious, John Singer Sargent, David Bomberg, and Steve McQueen. Others are by less well-known artists, and many of them have created images inspired by outbreaks of warfare that have occurred since the end of WW2. One of these, made by Steve McQueen, is a collection of postage stamps with faces of military personnel who died during the relatively recent Iraq conflict. These postage stamps, all of which bear a soldier’s portrait and the head of Queen Elizabeth II, are kept in a special wooden cabinet with sliding panels that can be pulled out to see the stamps. Like all the other artworks, this is both dramatic and moving. And seeing them during a period of warfare in the Middle East made them seem even more poignant.

There are several paintings by artists who joined British Colonial Artists Scheme, which encouraged ‘native-born’ artists to depict aspects of activities connected with warfare in the colonies. One of these artists was an African called Katongole. Another artist of interest is an Iraqi refugee called Walid Siti, who was born in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1984, and his etching was inspired by warfare.

Of all the wonderful paintings on display, two particularly attracted my attention. One showing Indian soldiers, who were recovering from injuries during WW1, lying in beds under a large, amazingly decorative dome in Brighton Pavilion, This was painted by Douglas Fox-Pitt in 1919. The other, which is the biggest picture in the galleries, is by John Singer Sargent. Called “Gassed”, it shows a long line of blindfolded soldiers, injured by poisonous gas, being led by an officer wearing a white overcoat. As they walk along, they are passing the corpses of their fellow soldiers.

The artworks in the Blavatnik Galleries at the Imperial War Museum easily rival what can be seen in the permanent collection of Tate Modern, and are a ‘must-see’ for anyone who has an interest in twentieth century artists, especially those who worked in Britain.

One of many artists who lived in north London’s Hampstead

Posted on April 13, 2026 by yamey

DONALD CHISHOLM TOWNER (1903-1985) was born in Eastbourne, where there is now a gallery named after his great-uncle (John Chisholm Turner), and studied art first at Eastbourne School of Art, and then at London’s Royal College of Art. After graduation, Donald first took a studio at Mornington Crescent. Later, he moved to Hampstead, first residing at Holly Hill, and then in Church Row, where he lived for 50 years.

Currently, Burgh House in Hampstead is hosting an exhibition of Towner’s artworks, which is called “Amongst the Trees and Terraces: Donald Towner (1903-1985) and will continue until 13 December 2026. The exhibition includes one painting of St Pauls Cathedral surrounded by bombed buildings during WW2. Almost all of the other pictures have scenes of Hampstead as their subjects, and were painted in his studio in Church Row. Mostly painted in pale colours, they are all pleasing to the eye. Pleasant as it is, I would not rate Towner’s work nearly as highly as that of his friend (and fellow student), the artist Eric Ravilious (1903-1942). Whereas Ravilious was adventurous in his compositional technique, Towner was more conventional.

Towner was not only a painter, but also a connoisseur and collector of ceramics. He began collecting after the end of WW2, and published several books about ceramics. At the same time, he continued painting until the end of his life.

The exhibition at Burgh House is small but well-laid out in the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Gallery. One large painting, not in that room, hangs in the reception area, and should not be missed. We saw the exhibition because we were meeting friends in Burgh House’s café. I am not sure that if one does not have an interest in Hampstead, or happen to be visiting the area, that I would make a special journey to see the exhibition.

A cathedral south of the River Thames but not on the tourist trail

Posted on April 12, 2026 by yamey

I HAVE PASSED this Victorian gothic church many times while travelling on the 148 bus route northbound, but it was only today, 7 April 2026, that I first set foot in it. The church is, actually, a cathedral but not the Anglican Southwark Cathedral (near London Bridge). It is St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, a Roman Catholic church.

Opposite the Imperial War Museum, the cathedral was built in 1848. Although it is a Victorian gothic edifice, it has the feel (a spacious lightness) and appearance of churches built in mediaeval times. Maybe this should not be surprising when one learns that its first architect was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852), one of the leading exponents of of Gothic Revival in Britain. Pugin converted to Catholicism in 1834, and this attracted him new patrons and commissions.

What we see today when entering the cathedral is not what Pugin would have seen. In WW2, the building was badly damaged by bombing. Within the external structure of Pugin’s building, the architect Romilly Craze (1892-1974), who restored many bombed churches, designed a gothic revival cathedral, which was opened in 1958, and that is what we see today.

Within the cathedral, one can admire the fine twentieth century stained glass windows, the circular shrine of Frances Xavier Cabrini (patron saint of migrants), the tomb of Peter Emmanuel Amigo (sixth Bishop of Southwark; lived 1864-1949), and a reclining sculpture of Provost Robert Doyle (1793-1879). Doyle was associated with the construction of the cathedral, and asking Pugin to design it. He was also involved with purchasing the land on which it was constructed.

Although it cannot compare with the great mediaeval cathedrals in England, St George’s is plasing to the eye, and judging by the large number of people joining a service on a Tuesday lunchtime, it serves its purpose well.

They tried to reduce a city, London, to rubble

Posted on April 11, 2026 by yamey

AS I WRITE this on 7 April 2026, the President of the USA has already threatened “… to bomb Iran ‘into the Stone Age’.

In 1940, the Germans, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, had slightly less ambitious evilintentions. They tried to reduce London to no more than rubble, and to some extent they succeeded, as can be seen at an exhibition being held at London’s Imperial War Museum until 1 November 2026. The show, “Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art”, contains a collection of paintings and drawings done by artists who were in London while it was being bombed by the Germans, during the so-called Blitz. There are images by a wide range of war artists, some I had heard of, and others that were new to me. Each image is accompanied by a good explanatory panel.

I knew thar during the Blitz, peopled sheltered in deep Underground stations, and that the artist Henry Moore is famous for depicting these makeshift shelters and those sheltering within them. What interested me in the War Museum’s exhibition was that there were pictures of these Underground shelters and other subterranean places by other artists, including: John Farliegh, Edward Ardizzone, Olga Lehmann, and Anthony Gross.

The other pictures on display show the damage done to buildings, aspects of attack and defence, life during the Blitz, and portraits of those who suffered during the attacks. Given what has been threatened by a President of the USA, it was somewhat unnerving seeing the pictures in the War Museum’s superb exhibition.

An exhibition which did not appeal to me

Posted on April 10, 2026 by yamey

ONE CANNOT HOPE to enjoy every work of art that is on display. Until 6 September 2026, at the Serpentine South Gallery there is an exhibition of paintings by Cecily Brown, who was born in London in 1960, and studied art at London’s Slade School of Fine Art. She works in New York.

I found Brown’s paintings to be messily composed. Each one looked like paint had been applied without much attention to composition. I might be missing something subtle, but her paintings did not appeal to me.

Well, at least I gave them a chance by viewing them.

An unusual street name in London’s Kentish Town

Posted on April 9, 2026 by yamey

WHEN VISITING KENTISH Town in north London, we parked close to a featureless cul-de-sac with an unusual name: Frideswide Place. In general, London’s street names are not invented ‘out of the blue’ but usually refer to places, such as Pretoria Road, or people, such as Gainsborough Gardens. I wondered whether Frideswide referred to a place or a person or something else.

A brief search of the Internet revealed that Frideswide is the name commonly given to Frithuswith, a saint who lived from about 670 AD until 727. She was an English princess (daughter of a ruler of Mercia named Dida of Eynsham whose territory was in western Oxfordshire and the upper reaches of the River Thames) and an abbess. She founded a monastery in Oxford. She is reputed to have had great healing powers, and is remembered for this. She is now the patron saint of the City of Oxford. This is all interesting enough, but why is there a road named after her in Kentish Town?

An answer to this question can be found on a website about Kentish Town (www.kentishtowner.co.uk/2013/04/10/wednesday-picture-whats-in-a-street-name/):

“Sometimes a whole group of street names will relate to one landowner. For instance, the area to the east of The Oxford was owned by Christ Church, Oxford University. This includes Frideswide Place (which is cut off by the railway) … It turns out that St Frideswide Priory, established in 1122, was the predecessor to Christ Church [in Oxford].”

And that seems to me a reasonable answer to my question.

Art Deco in London’s Kensington

Posted on April 8, 2026 by yamey

I AM ENTHUSIASTIC about the Art Deco style of architecture that flourished mainly between the two World Wars, but has not been entirely abandoned today.

Bombay, which I visit often, is rich in Art Deco buildings, but in London, there are fewer examples. In Kensington, Winchester Court is a fine example. Built in 1935 on the site of a demolished orphanage, it is not far from two other Art Deco edifices on High Street Kensington, both built as department stores: the former Barkers and its neighbour, Derry and Thoms.

Those interested in Art Deco will find interesting examples dotted around the London’s suburbs that developed during the inter-war years.

A church near Knightsbridge

Posted on April 7, 2026 by yamey

Blossoms frame it

A gothic church in Knightsbridge

Under a greyish sky

A peculiar mission in the wilds of Russia

Posted on April 6, 2026 by yamey

THE AUTHOR SOPHY Roberts made several quite arduous trips to various parts of Siberia. Her aim was to find pianofortes that had, in various ways and at different times in Russia’s history, found their way to cities and very remote places east of the Ural mountains, in Siberia. Her book, “The Lost Pianos of Siberia” describes her adventures and some of the pianos she found.

What made the book interesting for me was not so much the pianos themselves, but what Ms Roberts wrote about Siberia: its history; the people she met; and the landscape she saw. She also described early travel accounts of this vast often snowy part of Russia. Furthermore, she provided interesting insights into the Russian piano making industry that flourished both before and after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Illustrated with photographs and maps, this book is both fascinating and a compelling read

Remembering a forgotten adventure during WW2 in German occupied France

Posted on April 5, 2026 by yamey

DURING WORLD WAR II, many Indian soldiers fought with the British in North Africa and on many other battlefronts. Vast numbers of allied soldiers were taken prisoner by the Germans in North Africa, and these prisoners of war (‘POWs’) included several thousand Indians. The POWs were taken first to Italy, and then to prison camps in German occupied territory. One of the prison camps that contained many Indians was in the French town of Epinal. In May 1944, allied aircraft heavily bombed the town as part of a programme to damage French the railway system that was being used by the Germans. During this attack, the camp housing the Indians was badly damaged, and many Indian POWs escaped. At least 500 of them found their way to safety in Switzerland, and a few fought with the French resistance. This almost forgotten episode is described in “The Great Epinal Escape”, a book written by Ghee Bowman (1961-2025).

The book details how and where the Indians were taken prisoner; who they were; their journeys from Africa to Epinal; and their lives in the camps. Then, in meticulous detail, it recounts how the escapees found their way to freedom in Switzerland and the help they received from French people on their difficult journeys. This assistance was given by ordinary people, who knew that if they were discovered to be helping escaped POWs, they would face horrendous punishments, including execution.

Bowman’ scholarly but extremely readable book is the only account in English of this great escape story. Whereas the daring escapes of British POWs from German prison camps have been related in books and films, the Epinal escape, probably the greatest escape of POWs during WW2, seems to have been ignored both by British and Indian historians. The reasons for this are discussed in Bowman’s final chapter.

I bought my copy of this book about an almost forgotten episode during WW” in Bangalore (India), and I have enjoyed reading it.

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