1942
Oil on canvas
35.6 x 61 cm
Official War Artist Works | 1940 to 1949 All Works in Public Collections Ships | Boats | Harbours | Ports Wartime Seascapes | Coastal Scenes Commissioned Works Animals | Birds Richard Eurich (1903-1992) Visionary Artist The Art of Richard Eurich
Recto: Signed and dated lower right: R. EURICH. 1942.
Aka: Survivors from a Torpedoed Ship [Tate]; Survivors on an Upturned Boat {RE diary]; Survivors on overturned boat [RE sales diary]
Tate WW2 WWII World War 2 World War II bird black boats ships choppy sea clinging cold ethnic exhausted figure fog frozen hull lifeboat men mist negro overturned public collection sailors sea seagull upturned war war artist wartime weather"The artist said that this picture was based on fact. The sailor in the middle helped the other two to cling, half frozen, to the boat, which they daren’t try to turn upright. Although the three men were eventually picked up the black sailor did not survive."
"I had done this one which is now in the Tate Gallery of an upturned boat with three survivors clinging to it, the centre figure being a negro* who was holding the other two up, all completely sort of frozen. When I submitted it to the War Artists’ Committee they wouldn’t exhibit it in the National Gallery where there was a general show of war artists’ work because they said it wasn’t good for recruiting for the Merchant Navy. I asked various Merchant Navy men I knew and they said ‘That is absolutely ridiculous.’ It’s just the kind of picture …
"I had done this one which is now in the Tate Gallery of an upturned boat with three survivors clinging to it, the centre figure being a negro* who was holding the other two up, all completely sort of frozen. When I submitted it to the War Artists’ Committee they wouldn’t exhibit it in the National Gallery where there was a general show of war artists’ work because they said it wasn’t good for recruiting for the Merchant Navy. I asked various Merchant Navy men I knew and they said ‘That is absolutely ridiculous.’ It’s just the kind of picture they did want and there was no shortage of recruiting for the Merchant Navy.’"
"In addition, the examples (cited above) of Carel Weight and Frances Macdonald being requested to delete from their paintings evidence of public panic (a part of most people's experience), suggests that the WAAC was not at all eager to acquire images that were truly nasty. Indeed, Richard Eurich's 'Survivors from a Torpedoed Ship' was actually removed from exhibition at the National Gallery because of Admiralty objections that it would discourage enlistment in the Merchant Marine. It also seems significant that, of all the war artists, only Leslie Cole (first in Malta in 1943, and later in Greece and Germany) showed …
"In addition, the examples (cited above) of Carel Weight and Frances Macdonald being requested to delete from their paintings evidence of public panic (a part of most people's experience), suggests that the WAAC was not at all eager to acquire images that were truly nasty. Indeed, Richard Eurich's 'Survivors from a Torpedoed Ship' was actually removed from exhibition at the National Gallery because of Admiralty objections that it would discourage enlistment in the Merchant Marine. It also seems significant that, of all the war artists, only Leslie Cole (first in Malta in 1943, and later in Greece and Germany) showed a pronounced interest in the horrific, culminating in his oil paintings at the Belsen concentration camp (illustration 20)."
* We recognise the sensitive nature of the word used in this text, and reproduce it in the knowledge that it ‘was of its time’ and that the artist would not have used it today.
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The Art of World War II: A Culture Show Special to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, BBC4, May 2020
