Watercolour over pen and ink, 24 by 32 cm (9 ½ by 12 ½ ins)

Provenance: Brian Foss, Canada

“WAAC minutes show that by 24 May 1944 arrangements had been made for Hennell (as well as artists Edward Ardizzone and Barnett Freedman) ‘to paint coming events’.” (Jessica Kilburn, Thomas Hennell, The Land and the Mind, Pimpernel Press, 2021, p.278). In this covert reference to D-Day, Hennell was to be one of only a handful of British artists to follow in the immediate footsteps of the Allied troops. Although setting off on 11^th June 1944 (five days after the initial invasion) his vivid watercolours are a remarkable record of the wrecked landscape that awaited him there. Many of these watercolours were taken in and around the Norman city of Caen, where bombed buildings and villages like those here must have been the common motif on his route. Hennell was deeply aware of the honour of this appointment, writing to Kenneth Clark “I will try very hard not to disgrace the opportunity” (quoted ibid. p,278). The artistic results of this expedition suggest that he clearly did not.