Cudham, Sevenoaks: The Artist who Captured the War

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When Colin Gill was invalided out of active service following a gas attack, he fulfilled his ambition to become an official war artist. His works, including ‘Heavy Artillery’, (now in the Imperial War Museums) portray his experience at the front. Sara Parker discovered some of his letters with art historian Sacha Llewellyn who, with Imperial War Museums curator Richard Salcombe; revealed the importance of his most well-known painting, Heavy Artillery. Kent-born Gill was the first British artist to win the Rome Scholarship and gave up his studies in Italy to enlist. His experiences in a heavy artillery battalion as well as his work designing camouflage are reflected in the painting. Although British war artists were not allowed to portray death – something that did not worry the Canadians, who commissioned a much more graphic scene. He and other artists, like Paul Nash who also spent time in Dymchurch, Kent; were commissioned as part of a national memorial which was scrapped by the Treasury after the war. However it did give Gill the opportunity to return to the front in the final days of the war. Location: Cudham, Sevenoaks TN14 7RF