Flying Colours

23rd January 2018

After painting matinée idols, Olive Snell turned her focus to World War II pilots. Now these poignant watercolours can be seen at Goodwood

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Looking at Olive Constance Snell’s (1888-1962) glamorous pictures of 1920s flappers, it might seem strange that the American society painter later turned her hand to portraits of World War II pilots. From Tallulah Bankhead, an American actress known for her husky voice and outrageous personality, to English actresses such as Cathleen Nesbitt and Madeleine  Carroll, she painted some of the biggest, most eccentric names in film, as well as influential society women such as the Duchess of Argyll. Many of her works appeared in The Tatler before the war.

Pilots soon became synonymous with handsome, brave young men, with their own sense of intrigue and allure, so maybe it’s not surprising that Olive came to focus on them as her subjects during the war. Her marriage to the army colonel Ebenezer JL Pike gave Olive access to  military officers as well as social acquaintances, and her sketching permit from the War Artists’ Advisory Committee allowed her to paint in public throughout the war.

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Two excellent examples of her work from this period were added to the Goodwood collection this summer. A pair of watercolour paintings entitled Comrades in Arms depict a selection of the pilots from 610 Squadron who were stationed at RAF Westhampnett at Goodwood in 1943. 

The pilots painted include: James Edgar (Johnnie) Johnson, the top-rated Allied fighter pilot of the war in the European  theatre; Sgt Karol Michalkiewicz, nicknamed Polish Charlie, one of many Polish airmen to Britain’s aid after the fall of their country and who joined the 610 Squadron on 21 November 1941 from The City of Warsaw Polish Squadron; and P/O Andrew Stewart Barrie (Stewie), who was tragically shot down and killed in June of the same year, aged just 25. 

In fact, of the 18 pilots depicted in the paintings (many of whom are listed by their nicknames, including Hoppy, Feathers,  South and Dai), four were killed in the months after the portraits were finished. As the personnel of both bases and squadrons changed regularly during this time, the same painting, completed just two months later, would have featured a very different group of men. These wonderfully poignant works capture an extraordinary moment in time, and join two other works by  Snell at Goodwood: black-and-white sketches of the late Duke of Richmond and his brother, Lord Nicholas Gordon Lennox, and a small head-and-shoulders oil portrait of the 9th Duchess of Richmond, currently on display in the Red Hall.

This article is taken from the Goodwood magazine, Winter 2018 issue

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