Crucifixion by Gladys Hynes, oil on cardboard

Gladys Hynes painted ‘Crucifixion’ in 1939 as one of several artistic statements against Britain’s declaration of war on Germany.

By the mid-1930s, a time of political and economic tumult, most British artists were socialists engaged with anti-Fascist and pacifist causes. Many, like Hynes, supported the Republican faction in the Spanish Civil War, as well as participating in charitable exhibitions including ‘Artists Against Fascism and War’, held in 1935. However, Crucifixion symbolised for Hynes more than the martyrdom of airmen; as a devout Catholic from an Irish family, it symbolised how war affronted her Christian values. Although Hynes is now almost forgotten, and her work cannot neatly be defined by artistic school, she was once well-known in modernist circles, mixing with writers and artists involved with Vorticism and the art and design enterprise the Omega Workshops. Copyright: the artist's estate / RAF Museum.