Exhibition Theme - Battle

Night target, Germany

Bomb aimer Brittain wrote to his parents in 1944: "The night attacks although they are deadly are very beautiful from our point of view. The target is like an enormous lighted Christmas tree twenty miles away but straight beneath one looks like pictures I have seen of the mouth of hell." In a 1946 letter to his parents he assessed this painting critically: "My target picture looks like the real thing they say, but I don't like it yet as a picture. In fact at the moment, I feel like putting my foot though it."

Oil and tempera on Masonite 76.5 x 61 cm
Painted in 1946
Beaverbrook Collection of War Art
Canadian War Museum 19710261-1436

<< Previous | Battle Index | Next >>