Night Raid, 1917 by C.R.W. Nevinson, oil on canvas

Earlier in the First World War Nevinson volunteered as an ambulance driver for the Friends Ambulance Unit in Dunkirk, after which, upon contracting rheumatic fever, he returned to London, exhibited war-themed drypoint prints and volunteered as an orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1917 he became an Official War Artist, initially making propagandist lithographs on the theme of Building Aircraft for the Department of Information's project, 'The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals'. Returning to France in July 1917, he went on to paint some of his most memorable and defining pictures of the war.

In the catalogue for his second exhibition of war art at the Leicester Galleries, London (March 1918), Nevinson described his approach to these new subjects: 'All of my work had to be done from rapid short-hand sketches made often under trying conditions in the front line, behind the lines, above the lines in aeroplanes and beyond them even to the country at present held by the enemy'. Yet, he also admitted that for his finished pictures he 'relied chiefly on memory'. In his memoir, ‘Paint and Prejudice’ (1938), and newspaper articles, Nevinson recalled his experiences of flying and sketching in balloons and biplanes amid enemy fire from anti-aircraft guns and sometimes fighter planes. However, it is uncertain whether ‘Night Raid, 1917’ was painted from the artist’s recollection or imagination. Made around 1920, several years after his other aerial Western Front subjects, the painting was not appraised among Nevinson's much discussed war subjects. Representing a reconnaissance biplane, the painting is a more dramatic composition than Nevinson's other scenes of anti-aircraft fire, 'Archies' and 'Over the Lines' (both Imperial War Museums). Depicted at close quarters, much intensifying the viewer's perspective, the turning aircraft (perhaps an Avro 504 bomber) perilously negotiates large white-red bursts of gun fire. A red glow upon the landscape below might indicate anti-aircraft guns or air strikes from the plane. Purchased from Onslow Auctions Ltd in 2005. Provenance: Collection of Captain Francis Lloyd, 1938, followed by private collections. Artist copyright: expired / RAF Museum.