This is a beautiful 66 year old Pen & Ink drawing, by J.M. Bruce, of the Blackburn Blackburd, WWI torpedo plane of June, 1918. The plane he has drawn is #113, the first of only three built. The dwg is dated by him in the lower right corner as 21.11.48.. J.M. Bruce was considered to be the World’s leading authority and historian of WWI British aircraft. His massive book on the subject, “British Aeroplanes 1914-1918, is considered the definitive reference of the subject. He was also the Director/Curator of the Royal Air Force Museum for many years.
Finding new homes for my 45 year collection has been keeping me quite busy. I have quite a few of Bruce’s detailed pen & inks from the late 1940s. They include everything from the Classic B.E, R.E., DH., and F.B. series to the one-of-a-kinds.
An important body of work.. He thoughfully offset the dwgs toward the bottom so the top two notebook holes could be matted out and the dwg still be well-balanced.
Yes, the night bombers always bring and extra sense of drama..
Here is my 36 x 44 inch, framed Original acrylic, of a WWI Gotha raid on nightime London, painted by Thomas Kepple.The title is:
“Phantoms of the Opera.”
Sorry for the bit of flash reflection at upper center..
Some of my very favorites..
Original 85 year old aero art painted on 85 year old newsprint!
It survives in amazingly fine condition!
Here is a fascinating back-story and visually stunning unpublished aviation artwork. I have ALL 36! of the original set of 36 that Charles Hubbell did. Some of his very earliest work, and no other caseins are known to have been done, as he moved on to watercolors and oils, and International fame and popularity. The fact that the complete set has survived, intact, in excellent condition, for over 80 years is somewhat remarkable. I
They are unpublished.
Casein paints (milk -based) are, visually, more like oils, than watercolors, in that they have no transparency and are very opaque. The paint on these is pretty thick..It is fast-drying, water –soluble, and generally has a glue-like consistency that can be thinned with water to suit the artist’s style.
Note the fabulous contest prizes for any aviation buff! and what the contest led to- 40 years of Hubbell being one of the most recognized & popular aviation artists of the 20th Century, possibly all-time..etc etc
The beautifully bright colors of the 36 Caseins, painted by a young Charles Hubbell for what is believed to be a newspaper contest that he won and brought him to prominence. The contest was sponsored by The Cleveland Press to promote the First National Air Races in Cleveland, 1929. They were required to be painted on the Cleveland Newspaper’s newsprint.*with enough of the printing visible around the margin of the painting, to be recognized as such.. But you cannot see any newsprint (Except by Lifting the matts & turning them over..) as they are all nicely matted and placed in a protective album. Complete set of (numbered on matting) all 36. Beautiful Classics of the late 1920s. Very important and historic, and beautiful. Certainly among his earliest work. Extremely rare, of course. No other caseins known.
The paintings are printed on the newsprint of the very edition of Cleveland Press Newspaper that announced the contest and the prizes! The following information was obtained from reading the Original newsprint, around the outer edges of the paintings!.
Prizes offered in this contest were Amazing! Including “Three Ocean Cruises Await the Winners of the Press’ National Air Race;” Two Other Adult Prizes are airplane trips to Detroit and return, in Stout Airlines Tri-Motored Ford Airplanes” and “Two Round Triips to Detroit in Loening amphibian airplanes.” The first five prize trips in airplanes piloted by noted aviators;” ” 6th t0 55th; Combination tickets to NAR and National Exposition in Public Hall;” 56th-70th are “pilots ???”(as seen on newsprint on edges of painting
. Problem is, the Bro. Bro. Cat you link too are modern-day information.What is needed is the early WWI and ‘between the wars’ catalog. Sopwith; the ebay sale happened over 4 years ago. Still holding my breath. )
Cheers, Ed
Mine is 1910… and have lots of WWI and earlier, and between the wars, catalogues, brochures & manuals, for all kinds of Aero sales. All countries/Eras..been finding new homes for all of them, recently. Some do not “travel” well (as in..cost of posting to UK and Europe) such as large heavy Argosy, Vickers, Metor original manuals. Anything that is registered or tracked costs a fortune. but light manuals and catalogues can go by First Class Mail (uninsured) for under $10. *for Some absurd reason, the US post Office will not even insure the Priority Mail parcels with tracking, to the UK?!
Hello AA;
Just scanned the G-AGWT Nighthawk. This is an original OLD snapshot photo of the 2.5 x 3.5 size. I readily admit my mistake of assuming it was a Falcon, at my first glance, because it was one of the unidentified photos, mixed in with the other Falcon shots, in the “Miles, Misc” photo print section, of the former Ashworth Collection.
I shall try to accomodate some of the other requests, above, as time permits…
Halcyon Days; That is a great member name, and a very nice old story..
aa;
You probably have this one, but here is ADTD at Bagington in 1957. There are also a group of other Miles Falcon negatives, including those with large (race?) numbers on the tail, such as:
AGFH #18; ADLC #16; AGWT #2; and AEEG with # 54..with additional prints of ADGB; OO-FLY; AGFH; ADLC; AGZX; and ADFH. here are Miles Falcon negatives from the Ashworth collection.
As to the airfied photos and negatives collections, most of the Index ( I spent eight weeks organizing!, as the collection came without Ashworth’s own index, which appears to have been lost.. 🙁 )most of those images are in very large GENERAL grouping of “Airfields’ with IDs on neg envelopes, but photos (up to 8 x 10 size, loose in piles in boxes, and unorganized other than that general grouping.) I SHALL keep an eye out, and possibly go through them in the next week or so, keeping in mind, the requests for specific airfield, requested, above. Most of Ashworth’s collections were organized in crumbling old shoe boxes, and I not only put them in archival boxes of a standard size, but a fair number of his shoeboxes and file trays – and some small metal file cabinets for the negatives.had lots of space in them, above the negatives and photos, and had been completely shuffled and scattered, in shipping to me . He had never envisioned they would be turned upside down, and shipped elsewhere..At least, in only ONE box, at a time, so I “only” had to reorganize them in their groups of approx. 1400 at a time, and divide them to specific Marks for various for various mfrs.
Glad you enjoyed them;
This first image for The Hampshire Flying club, reveals some impressive officers.
Second image shows some of the flying rates. The advertisement for Harrison’s Garage, “might” have been given more thought. It made me chuckle that they would assure you that “Your car troubles all become minor ones when placed in our care.” Does this mean if you bring them and auto with major problems, they will return one to you with Minor problems?
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