Australia,
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Exhibition Theme - Service

Recruit's progress: medical inspection

Carel Weight CBE RA (1908-1997)
Recruit's progress: medical inspection, Carel Weight CBE RA, Imperial War Museum, ART LD 2909

The new recruit, all unease and squirming, attempts to talk his way out of the inspection. The painting, the first of a series of four, shows how individual uncertainties were pushed to the limits in the face of public need and was a reflection of Weight's own experiences. Its humour made the imagery acceptable to the War Artists Advisory Committee: an earlier painting of a London trolley bus attacked in broad daylight by German fighter planes had been rejected since it was thought it might lower public morale.

Oil on canvas 50.8 x 81.2 cm
Painted in London, 1942
Imperial War Museum ART LD 2909

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