Robert Henderson Blyth, 1919 - 1970. (Self-portrait as soldier in trenches)

The artist, Robert Henderson Blyth joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1941 and served in Europe throughout the Second World War. During this time, he carried a lamp which, when fitted with a yellow bulb, gave an approximation of daylight, enabling him to paint during the hours of darkness. Blyth gave this painting the subtitle 'Existence Precarious'. It depicts a soldier, who appears to be the artist himself, exhausted by the conflict; a colleague, possibly dead, beside him, and a landscape in ruins behind. Painted at the end of hostilities, this is not a celebration of victory, but a stark view of a world devastated by war.

Credit: Purchased with money from the Knapping Fund 1991