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View of Preston from Higher Walton, Lancashire

Watercolour
1940 (Painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Watercolour; signed and dated. Distant view of Preston. The artist has taken as his subject the stark contrast between town and country, the rural and the industrial landscape. The painting suggests a gulf between the two, clearly defined by the river which bisects the picture at the point where the high ground gives way to the flat fields of the coastal plain around Preston. Cranes at the docks can be seen on the horizon, amongst the smoking factory chimneys.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Titles
  • View of Preston from Higher Walton, Lancashire (generic title)
  • Recording Britain (named collection)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour painting on paper
Brief description
Dawson, Byron
View of Preston from Higher Walton (Recording Britain, Lancashire)
Physical description
Watercolour; signed and dated. Distant view of Preston. The artist has taken as his subject the stark contrast between town and country, the rural and the industrial landscape. The painting suggests a gulf between the two, clearly defined by the river which bisects the picture at the point where the high ground gives way to the flat fields of the coastal plain around Preston. Cranes at the docks can be seen on the horizon, amongst the smoking factory chimneys.
Dimensions
  • Height: 36.5cm
  • Width: 50.5cm
Taken from 'Catalogue of Drawings in the "Recording Britain" Collection given by the Pilgrim Trust to the Victoria and Albert Museum' published by the Victoria and Albert Museum, Prints, Drawings and Paintings Department, 1951, and converted from inches to centimetres.
Marks and inscriptions
'Byron Dawson 1940' (Signed and dated at lower right)
Credit line
Given by the Pilgrim Trust
Object history
This work is from the 'Recording Britain' collection of topographical watercolours and drawings made in the early 1940s during the Second World War. In 1940 the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime, part of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, launched a scheme to employ artists to record the home front in Britain, funded by a grant from the Pilgrim Trust. It ran until 1943 and some of the country's finest watercolour painters, such as John Piper, Sir William Russell Flint and Rowland Hilder, were commissioned to make paintings and drawings of buildings, scenes, and places which captured a sense of national identity. Their subjects were typically English: market towns and villages, churches and country estates, rural landscapes and industries, rivers and wild places, monuments and ruins. Northern Ireland was not covered, only four Welsh counties were included, and a separate scheme ran in Scotland.

The scheme was known as 'Recording the changing face of Britain' and was established by Sir Kenneth Clark, then the director of the National Gallery. It ran alongside the official War Artists' Scheme, which he also initiated. Clark was inspired by several motives: at the outbreak of war in 1939, there was a concern to document the British landscape in the face of the imminent threat of bomb damage, invasion, and loss caused by the operations of war. This was allied to an anxiety about changes to the landscape already underway, such as the rapid growth of cities, road building and housing developments, the decline of rural ways of life and industries, and new agricultural practices, which together contributed to the idea of a 'vanishing Britain'. Clark also wanted to help artists, and the traditional forms of British art such as watercolour painting, to survive during the uncertain conditions of wartime. He in turn was inspired by America's Federal Arts Project which was designed to give artists employment during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Over 1500 works were eventually produced by 97 artists, of whom 63 were specially commissioned. At the time the collection had a propaganda role, intended to boost national morale by celebrating Britain's landscapes and heritage. Three exhibitions were held during the war at the National Gallery, and pictures from the collection were sent on touring exhibitions and to galleries all around the country. After the war, the whole collection was given to the V&A by the Pilgrim Trust in 1949, and it was documented in a four volume catalogue published between 1946 and 1949. For many years the majority of the collection was on loan to councils and record offices in each county, until recalled by the V&A around 1990. The pictures now form a memorial to the war effort, and a unique record of their time.
Subjects depicted
Places depicted
Bibliographic references
  • Catalogue of Drawings in the 'Recording Britain' Collection given by the Pilgrim Trust to the Victoria and Albert Museum published by the Victoria and Albert Museum, Prints, Drawings and Paintings Department, 1951.
  • Palmer, Arnold, ed. Recording Britain. London: Oxford University Press, 1946-49. Vol. 3: Lancashire and Westmoreland, Derbyshire, Cheshire and Shropshire, Staffordshire, Welsh counties, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire. Introduction to Lancashire and Westmorland, p.1.
  • Mellor, David, Gill Saunders and Patrick Wright. Recording Britain: A Pictorial Domesday of Pre-War Britain. Newton Abbot and London: David & Charles in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1990. p.100, illus.
Collection
Accession number
E.1715-1949

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Record createdDecember 15, 1999
Record URL
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