Hampdens (from Aerial Creatures) by Paul Nash, graphite and watercolour on paper

This (now discoloured) study of Hampden bombers ascending from an airfield is one of 22 ‘Aerial Creatures’ watercolours Paul Nash made for his Official War Artist commission with the Air Ministry.

To gather source material for his subjects, Nash visited airfields to photograph aircraft, while requesting imagery and military aviation periodicals from the RAF and the Ministry of Information. Nash’s scrutiny of aircraft forms and his imaginative, surrealist vision led him to develop ideas about the ‘personalities of planes’. Likening aircraft to animals, he equated the Hampden bomber with a pterodactyl or reptile, describing ‘its great satanic nose snuffling the upper air’. From the Air Ministry allocation of works from the War Artists' Advisory Committee, 1947. Original accession number: LD450. On loan from the RAF Air Historical Branch (MOD). Artist copyright: Crown (expired). Image copyright: RAF Museum.