Sailor Malan’s Magic Spitfire

Sailor Malan’s Magic Spitfire
Mixed Media - 19 x 25"
One in a series of images on WWII

David's take on the iconic image of Adolph "Sailor" Malan, the South African-born RAF ace.  One can imagine how Malan's life story would seem fascinating to a young boy in the 1940s, when David likely first saw the famous photograph he would re-create decades later.  Malan was a former member of the Merchant Marine (thus the nickname) who joined the RAF in 1935.  In 1939, Malan led his squadron into action just 15 hours after the formal declaration of war between the UK and Germany.  Unfortunately, Malan's fighters mistakenly attacked a returning RAF bomber squadron, and shot down two planes.  Malan survived the subsequent court martial to become one of the most decorated and heroic pilots in RAF history, and his influence on air combat (and life in general) continues to this day.

German Dive Bomber (Blue) - Mixed Media, 19 x 25"

German Dive Bomber (Blue)

Mixed media, 19 x 25"

One in a series of images on WWII

In the Fall of 1965, when I was teaching art and working as a graphic designer at the University of New Hampshire, I did several drawings portraying major personalities of World War II - the heroes and villains of my childhood.  I intended them as an ironic counterpoint to the war in Vietnam, which was just then becoming a divisive issue on college campuses and throughout the country.

When I started, I thought that the series might extend to five or six drawings.  When I finally stopped, more than five years later, I had completed more than 100 drawings and 20 offset lithographs depicting various aspects of the war and its aftermath - by far the most complex and ambitious artistic project I had ever undertaken.

What was concerning to me then (and intriguing to me now) was the extent to which the project had come to dominate my artistic output, spreading and growing as though it had taken on a life of its own.  I realized that exhibiting my World War II pieces would be difficult.  I thought that, seen out of context in an art gallery, they would be controversial; that my fascination with the brutality of the war, and the evils it revealed, would be misunderstood.  I explored collecting them in a portfolio or book, but that idea proved to be overly ambitious and too expensive, so I gradually abandoned my WWII project, incomplete and unfinished, and moved on.

In 2001, after being stored away for 40 years, they came back forcibly to mind in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.  I'm not sure how to explain the renewal of interest.  Perhaps I have regrets about leaving the project unfinished, or perhaps I feel that the subject of war and evil is too important to be left in the past.  But whatever the reason, I believe these images of World War II deserve an audience to whom they can present themselves and state their case.

To Be Continued