Jan Gordon as a war artist
At the end of 1918 Jan was a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval volunteer Reserve, having been given that rank to work on the top secret Dazzle Camouflage.
He was commissioned as an official war artist for the Navy medical section and produced series of paintings of Haslar hospital, and of medical work on ships.
[of which more to come]
All the pictures following here are copyright the Imperial War Museum and the Wellcome Medical Museum.
When I first sought to view these paintings hidden away in the IWM stores I was given a list of the paintings commissioned but there were a lot missing. I was told that these were presumed lost at sea or destroyed in WW2 air raids while on loan to various ships or navy offices Frankly no one seemed bothered about the loss of them. and I was told bluntly that there was no point in looking for them.
Admittedly they are not amongst Jan Gordon's most inspired work, but a little detective work on my part soon uncovered them in the stores of the Wellcome Institute collection.
Needless to say I got no thanks for reporting back this find to the IWM.
So if copyright has been infringed I have taken the liberty of using them as my meed of thanks.
For a better and more complete set of pics and a slide show see here http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/jan-godfrey-jervis-gordon