The “Berkeley Castle”

  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Government Art Collection
  • About the artist
    Roland Vivian Pitchforth was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire and studied there and in Leeds up to 1915. After the First World War, he returned to Leeds, then won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art (RCA, 1921–1925). Until 1939 he taught at Camberwell and Clapham Schools of Art and the RCA. He joined the London Artists' Association and the London Group in the late 1920s. As an Official War Artist in the Second World War, Pitchforth worked for the Ministry of Information and Home Security, drawing RAF activities, boat yards, factories, control rooms and tanks. He witnessed the Burma campaign in the Far East in 1945, then briefly lived in South Africa. On his return, he taught art and became a Royal Academician (1953).
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  • Details
    Title
    The “Berkeley Castle”
    Date
    1944
    Medium
    Watercolour on paper
    Dimensions
    height: 57.50 cm, width: 79.30 cm
    Acquisition
    Presented via the Imperial War Museum, War Artists' Advisory Committee, April 1946
    Inscription
    BL: Pitchforth 44 / Berkeley Castle (feint) VERSO:picture of same view loading depth charges onto firers.
    GAC number
    193