Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring
Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring | |
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Artist | Laura Knight |
Year | 1943 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 86 cm × 100 cm (34 in × 40 in)[1] |
Location | The Imperial War Museum Collection |
Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring is a 1943 painting by the British artist
Loftus was a 21-year-old woman who had quickly become an expert in the production of breech-rings—in seven months, rather than the several years it normally took. The painting was commissioned to promote women's work in factories; women dominate the picture, and only one man is visible, in the background. When unveiled at the 1943 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the painting was extremely popular, and was voted the picture of the exhibition. The image was reproduced in a large-scale poster version by the WAAC for display in factories across the country.
Background
During the
Discontent within the factory workforce lead to strikes in the UK in the lead up to January 1943.
Knight was commissioned to paint Ruby Loftus in late 1942. She was a machine operator described by the Ministry of Supply as "an outstanding factory worker".[8] Knight, who was working on A Balloon Site, Coventry, turned down the fee of 75 guineas, negotiating 100 guineas plus expenses; even the higher figure was, she said "infinitely lower than I should ask for any other work than that connected to the war".[a][10][b] Knight offered to accept the 75 guinea fee, but only if it could be painted in her studio.[10] The WAAC responded that, although they were grateful that she was working at a much lower level of fees than her pre-war rates, the policy was that all work commissioned was "on a virtually fixed scale of fees irrespective of the status of the artist".[10] The committee added that as Loftus was too valuable to be released from the factory, they would agree to Knight's 100 guinea request; she travelled to Newport, Wales, to paint the portrait in situ over three weeks.[11][12] The work was completed by the end of March.[10]
Loftus and her family moved to
Description
Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring is an
According to the cultural historian Barbara Morden, Loftus is depicted as "a young and attractive woman";[19] with brown curly hair not quite contained under a green headscarf or snood. She wears paint-splattered overalls and make-up, the latter emphasising her femininity.[19][20][21] By leaning over the workbench her face is placed in the horizontal centre of the picture, accentuating her importance. Her face is highlighted with the reflection of the light shining on the wet metal.[22][12] The social historian Elizabeth de Cacqueray observes that Loftus's head and the highlighted metal disk face each other along the diagonal of the picture, with Loftus's head scarf and face repeated ovals that reflect each other.[15]
External image | |
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Front view of breech housing of Bofors gun |
The painting shows Loftus cutting the screw threads which would attach the barrel to the breech housing of the gun as sparks and water droplets come off the lathe.[12] According to Foss her workspace is "clean and efficient-looking",[5] while the natural approach to the work—and the level of technical details captured in the picture—"had the desired effect of testifying to Loftus's exploit [of being expert at her work] being an indisputable fact".[23]
The background of the painting shows the rest of factory floor, populated with women working at their benches; there is one man present, probably the foreman, given that he wears a tie.[24][21] The clothing worn by the women carries a patriotic tone, according to the art historian Mike McKiernan, as reds, whites and blues dominate.[25] According to the cultural historian Lindsey Robb, the painting—along with Frank Dobson's 1944 work An Escalator in an Underground Factory—"reinforce the representation of industrial work as female" during wartime.[24]
According to the art historians Teresa Grimes, Judith Collins and Oriana Baddeley, Knight adopts what they call a "documentary approach" to the machinery that "has the verisimilitude of a photograph but makes a far more powerful impact".[16] In this manner, the painting is similar to many examples of British wartime cinema that depicted the working class in an unsentimental manner.[16]
Reception
Ruby Loftus was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition on 30 April 1943.[26] Loftus was present that day to see the picture, and was interviewed by the press about her involvement.[13] The following day the painting was reproduced in several national newspapers.[26][d] The critic for The Times thought the picture had "a certain brutal vigour", that made it "hard to take in all the detail without strain";[27] W. T. Oliver, writing in The Yorkshire Post found "little pleasure in Dame Laura's brand of realism", but admired "her energy, her disciplined thoroughness and conviction".[28]
A "Warwork News"
Ruby Loftus was shown at the 1947 Engineering and Marine Exhibition at the
The picture shows a woman doing what was traditionally a man's job,[34] and, according to Grimes, Collins and Baddeley, helped to popularise a "new, active image of femininity".[16] In this respect it has been likened to the American figure of "Rosie the Riveter";[35][36] Norman Rockwell's picture of Rosie appeared on 29 May 1943—a month after Ruby Loftus was first exhibited. According to Foss, "despite the similarity in their two names ... these two wartime icons could hardly be more different.[22]
Legacy
Loftus married Lance Corporal John Green in September 1943, and took her husband's surname. After the war, she was offered an opportunity to take an engineering course, but decided against it and emigrated to Canada with her husband, eventually settling in Winfield, British Columbia, Canada.[25][30] In British Columbia, she worked as an apple packer, in a post office and as a correspondent for a local newspaper. She travelled to London to see her portrait in the Imperial War Museum in May 1962, where she was accompanied by Knight. She was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Loftus's husband died in 2003, and she died in June 2004 at the age of 83.[25][30] In 2015 Loftus Garden Village, a housing development named after her, was built on the site of ROF Newport.[37]
Looking back at the works Knight painted for the WAAC, Clark wrote to her "The pictures you have done for us have been an immense success from every point of view".[38] The success of the painting led to further industrial commissions for Knight throughout the 1940s. In 1945 she painted Switch Works at Ellison Switchgear in Birmingham. This was followed by paintings of operations at the Dow Mac concrete railway-sleeper works and at the Skefko ball bearing factory.[39] In 1946 she visited Germany under the auspices of the Nuremberg war crimes trials where she painted The Nuremberg Trial.[40]
The painting returned to Newport in 2006 for display as part of a project recording the recollections of women who had worked at the Royal Ordnance Factory.
See also
- Canary Girls, British women who worked in munitions
- Women in the workforce
- Women in the World Wars
- Bomb Girls
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ Foss says Knight was commissioned in October 1942;[9] the art historians Catherine Speck and Kathleen Palmer say it was in December.[10][8]
- ^ Foss states that before the war Knight would have accepted commissions of about 400 guineas for a large canvas work (as the portrait of Loftus was).[5]
- ^ The art historians Teresa Grimes, Judith Collins and Oriana Baddeley consider it "heightened realism;[16] the social historian Elizabeth de Cacqueray calls it "strongly realist".[15]
References
- ^ a b "Ruby Loftus screwing a breech-ring". Imperial War Museums.
- ^ Chilvers 1998, p. 453.
- ^ Dunbar 2009.
- ^ Harries & Harries 1983, p. 266.
- ^ a b c d e Foss 2007, p. 110.
- ^ Summerfield & Crockett 1992, p. 439.
- ^ Harries & Harries 1983, pp. 266–267.
- ^ a b c Palmer 2011, p. 49.
- ^ a b c Foss 2007, p. 109.
- ^ a b c d e f Speck 2014, p. 135.
- ^ Spalding 1991, p. 410.
- ^ a b c d Morden 2013, p. 212.
- ^ a b "Gallery girl has day off to see her portrait at the Academy". The Evening Despatch, p. 1.
- ^ Wosk 2001, p. 207.
- ^ a b c d de Cacqueray 2012, p. 161.
- ^ a b c d e Grimes, Collins & Baddeley 1991, p. 44.
- ^ Whiteley 2011, p. 140.
- ^ Speck 2014, p. 136.
- ^ a b Morden 2013, pp. 212–213.
- ^ Whiteley 2011, p. 139.
- ^ a b McKiernan 2010, p. 421.
- ^ a b Foss 2007, p. 112.
- ^ Foss 2007, p. 111.
- ^ a b Robb 2017, p. 157.
- ^ a b c McKiernan 2010, p. 422.
- ^ a b c d e Foss 2007, p. 113.
- ^ "The Royal Academy". The Times.
- ^ Oliver 1943, p. 5.
- ^ "Royal Academy Portrait of Girl". British Universities Film & Video Council".
- ^ a b c "Loftus Garden Village: The story". Loftus Garden Village.
- ^ Dunbar 1975, p. 162.
- ^ Morden 2013, p. 213.
- ^ Fox 1988, p. 102.
- ^ Harries & Harries 1983, p. 267.
- ^ Cook 2006, p. 247.
- ^ Edgerton 2011, pp. 206–207.
- ^ "Loftus Garden Village: News". Loftus Garden Village.
- ^ Spalding 1991, p. 411.
- ^ Morden 2013, p. 215.
- ^ Grimes, Collins & Baddeley 1991, pp. 44–46.
- ^ "Iconic war painting returns home". BBC.
- ^ Hamilton 2013.
Sources
Books
- Chilvers, Ian (1998). A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1921-1645-1.
- Cook, Bernard A. (2006). Women and War: A Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-770-8.
- Dunbar, Janet (1975). Laura Knight. London: Collins. ISBN 978-0-0021-1489-9.
- Edgerton, David (2011). Britain's War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-983267-5.
- Foss, Brian (2007). War Paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain, 1939–1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10890-3.
- Fox, Caroline (1988). Dame Laura Knight. Oxford: Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-0-7148-2447-5.
- Grimes, Teresa; Collins, Judith; Baddeley, Oriana (1991). Five Women Painters. Harpenden, Herts: Lennard. ISBN 978-1-85291-101-0.
- Harries, Meirion; Harries, Susie (1983). The War Artists: British Official War Art of the Twentieth Century. London: M. Joseph in association with the Imperial War Museum and the Tate Gallery.
- Morden, Barbara C. (2013). Laura Knight: A Life. Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire: McNidder and Grace. ISBN 978-0-85716-066-9.
- Palmer, Kathleen (2011). Women War Artists. London: Tate Gallery. ISBN 978-1-8543-7989-4.
- Robb, Lindsey (2017). "'Fighting In Their Ways'? The Civilian Man in British Culture, 1939–1945". In Crowley, Mark J.; Trudgen Dawson, Sandra (eds.). Home Fronts: Britain and the Empire at War, 1939–45. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. pp. 146–164. ISBN 978-1-78327-225-9.
- ISBN 978-1-85149-107-0.
- Speck, Catherine (2014). Beyond the Battlefield: Women Artists of the Two World Wars. London: Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-78023-384-0.
- Whiteley, Gillian (2011). "Re-presenting Reality, Recovering the Social: The Poetics and Politics of Social Realism and Visual Art". In Tucker, David (ed.). British Social Realism in the Arts since 1940. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 132–171. ISBN 978-0-230-30638-7.
- Wosk, Julie (2001). Women and the Machine: Representations from the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age. Baltimore, MA and London: JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7313-3.
Journals and magazines
- de Cacqueray, Elizabeth (13 March 2012). "Painting the Second World War in Great Britain: A Selection of Women's Views". Revue LISA. X (1): 151–167. .
- Dunbar, Janet (2009). "Knight [née Johnson], Dame Laura (1877–1970)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34349. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- McKiernan, Mike (18 August 2010). "Dame Laura Knight Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring 1943". Occupational Medicine. 60 (6): 421–422. PMID 20719971.
- Summerfield, Penny; Crockett, Nicole (1992). "'You Weren't Taught That with the Welding': Lessons in Sexuality in the Second World War". Women's History Review. 1 (3): 435–454. .
News
- "Gallery girl has day off to see her portrait at the Academy". The Evening Despatch. 30 April 1943. p. 1.
- Hamilton, Adrian (22 July 2013). "Human touch: Laura Knight's NPG show is a timely reminder of her talent". The Independent.
- "Iconic war painting returns home". BBC. 22 July 2006.
- Oliver, W. T. (1 May 1943). "Royal Academy's Restfulness, A Refreshing Exhibition". The Yorkshire Post. p. 1.
- "The Royal Academy". The Times. 1 May 1943. p. 5.
Websites
- "Loftus Garden Village: News". Loftus Garden Village. Archived from the original on 26 November 2016. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
- "Loftus Garden Village: The story". Loftus Garden Village. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014.
- "Royal Academy Portrait of Girl". The British Universities and Colleges Film and Video Council. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
- "Ruby Loftus screwing a breech-ring". Imperial War Museums. Retrieved 11 April 2020.