Signed, inscribed and dated  l.l.: W.Rothenstein/Cl?ry/Jan 1918

Gouache with watercolour and chalk, 14 1/4 by 21 ins (36 by 53 cm)

Provenance: with the Fine Art Society, Bond Street, 1969

Most of Rothenstein?s sparse but hauntingly beautiful drawings of the Western Front date from the winter of 1917-18. There, meeting with his friend and fellow war artist, Eric Kennington, he worked tirelessly in the winter months of the following year, only a couple miles from the front line, recording the devastated landscape as an official War Artist. Rothenstein recalled it as one of his most inspired times as an artist, finding in the destruction a peculiar beauty equal to that caught by the work of other War artists including Kennington, William Orpen and Paul Nash: ?Had I asked myself, would I rather there had been no war, and consequently no such strange livid beauty, I should have been at a loss to answer ?I never valued life more highly than during the weeks spent in making these records.? (William Rothenstein, Men and Memories, 1872-1938, vol.II, Macmillan, 1940)