1948
Oil on canvas
64 x 76 cm
Private Collection, UK
Strange Pictures All Works in RA Summer Exhibitions 1937 to 1993 Night | Dusk Umbrellas | Hats Narrative Gatherings | Crowds | Festivities Works | 1940 to 1949
Recto: Signed and dated lower left: R. Eurich 1948
Aka: The Battle of the Boggarts [Bradford, 1951]; Battle of the Beggars [Bridgeman Art Library]; The Battle of Scarecrows [RE diary]; Battle of Boggarts [Redfern, and Bradford (1979)]; The Battle of the Boggarts [Bradford, 1951]; Battle of the Beggars [Bridgeman Art Library]; The Battle of Scarecrows [RE diary]
Verso: Redfern Gallery sales label dated 2nd May 1949; Cartwright Memorial Hall, Bradford label dated 1951; Fine Art Society label dated April 1980;
Boggarts agricultural ambiguous animal barn battle blood cart chaos clothing conflict conveyor currugated steel dream dreamlike dress fantastical farm fence field gate hay hay barn haystack horror machinery maddness moon mysterious mystery nightmare pans plough ploughed pots roller rural scarecrow scythe steer straw surreal surrealist sword trees umbrellas war warfare weapon wheels wooden fenceRE Diary entries:
7th June 1948: "Stretched a few canvases including a 30x25 on which I started a grand subject suggested by Mavis and Caroline who are reading ‘Worzel Gummidge’ together – ‘The Battle of Scarecrows'."
2nd May 1949: Heard the cheering news that two of my three paintings at the RA were sold on Private View day. Marine Harvest to the Ferens Art Gallery for 100 gns. And 'The Battle of the Boggarts' to Captain Cunningham Reid for 150 gns.
"Battle of the Boggarts" may have inspired the larger 1957 painting “Men of Straw” owned by Nottingham City Museums & Galleries.
Richard picks up the roller motif here that he first used in his 1936 work Cornish Landscape with Roller.
It is night time… when all the scary things happen! Perhaps that childhood fear never quite leaves us, and Dad has enjoyed revelling in these goings-on. Our Mother was reading Worzel Gummidge aloud which sparked the idea for this riot. The windows of the farm cottage in the background are eyes wide with horror but there is huge glee here in the violence and sheer mess! The hay-loader though full of lethal spikes looks somewhat like a party game. The whole picture is designed to be frightening and yet fun at the same time. [PB]
A "boggart" is variously described as a shapeshifter fairy or ogre of households or fields that takes the form of the viewer's worst fear.
Men of Straw (1957)
Image ©
Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery / Richard Eurich Paintings
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