Signed l.r.: R.A.Wilson/1917

Watercolour, 22 by 25.5 cm (8 ¼ by 10 ins)

Wilson won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art before continuing his training in Paris at the Académie Julien just before the outbreak of the First World War. Here he met a number of fellow British artists in France, amongst them Edward Wadsworth, C.R.W.Nevinson and William Roberts, painters with whom he had much in common. Like Nevinson in particular his work assimilates the influence of the Italian Futurists but with a particular focus on colour, a fact observed by fellow painter James Wood in an introduction to Wilson’s 1922 show. ” Wilson deals in colours at their fullest saturation, and his pictures are therefore exceedingly forcible and self-assertive” R.A. Wilson: Exhibition of Paintings and Colour Studies, Guild of Decorators’ Syndicate, London, May 1922. These are qualities that Wilson brings to this uncompromising watercolour – a clearly heartfelt protest at the events of the First World War.