Swan Song (Flying Bomb)

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Ministry of Defence, Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich

Kaff Gerrard was a gifted artist almost unknown in her own lifetime. Born Katherine Leigh-Pemberton in 1894, she studied at the Slade School of Art, London (1922–24), where she won First Prize for Painting from the Cast in 1922; Second Prize for Life Painting; and First Prize for Portrait Painting in 1923. At the Slade she met and later married A.H.Gerrard, who led the Slade Sculpture Department from 1924, later becoming Professor of Sculpture at the School. Gerrard settled in Kent, and drew and painted virtually every day on the South Downs. Although she worked constantly from her student days until her death in 1970, she never exhibited her work. In 1931, she had a joint show with A. H. Gerrard at Colnaghi's, where she exhibited sculpture and ceramics rather than paintings. Two decades after her death, a solo exhibition of her work was held at Canterbury Art Gallery in 1991. A.H. Gerrard did not sell any of his wife’s paintings, but offered a choice of works to public galleries, after which 48 pictures were distributed. Today, Gerrard’s work is represented in The Imperial War Museum, Tate and at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Places

Subjects

aeroplane, WW2 art, bomb, World War II

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Kaff Gerrard (1894 - 1970)

Title

Swan Song (Flying Bomb)

Date

1944

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 61.00 cm, width: 86.50 cm

Acquisition

Presented via the Imperial War Museum, War Artists' Advisory Committee, April 1946

Inscription

br: K. GERRARD

GAC number

123