Study for 'Take Off': Flight Engineer Alexander Quadling by Dame Laura Knight, charcoal on paper

This detailed preparatory study of Flight Sergeant Alexander Quadling, a Flight Engineer, is one of many large drawings Knight made for the painting ‘Take Off’ (1943, Imperial War Museums), in which she represented a Stirling bomber crew at RAF Mildenhall preparing for flight.

Knight, whose finished painting shows Quadling operating a switch on the Flight Engineer's panel, represents him in a state of deep concentration. The painting's emphasis on his pensive expression in the foreground, and the close proximity of the four airmen, hints at the crew's vulnerability as they embark on a raid. The Stirling bomber was a challenge to fly, incurring many accidents and losses, especially upon take off. Commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC) for the Ministry of Information, 'Take Off' may be regarded as a propagandist vision of Bomber Command, conveying a disarmingly personal, than strategic, perspective. This approach may be said to reflect on Knight’s changing attitude to war art commissioning. In the First World War she had declined an invitation to become an Official War Artist owing to the scheme’s propagandist intent. While, instead, the Second World War scheme aimed to develop an ‘artistic record’ of the conflict, which suited the broader aims of artists, Knight was undoubtedly aware of the Air Ministry’s motivations to encourage recruitment and positive publicity for Bomber Command. The commission, however, presented her with an unmissable opportunity as a female war artist whose subjects had until then been narrowly prescribed. Although Knight, who had covered a broad range of themes and genres over her long career, did not define her practice in exclusively gendered terms, the WAAC tasked women war artists with representing mostly ‘women’s work’ and experiences on the Home Front. Few women artists were commissioned to depict servicemen. After undertaking commissions which celebrated the activities and achievements of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, 'Take Off’ marked a turning point for Knight, expanding her wartime repertoire as an ambitious 'subject painting' of a military offensive. Bequest of the artist, 1974. Copyright: the artist's estate and Bridgeman Images / RAF Museum.