*Thomas Barclay Hennell (1903-1945), RIDDLING POTATOES Inscribed with title and dated January 14th 1928, pen and ink 22 x 32cm Thomas Hennell was born in Ridley, Kent on 16 April 1903. He was educated at Bradfield College, Berkshire, before moving to London to study art at the Regent Street Polytechnic (1921-25). He worked at Bruton School, Somerset and Kingswood School, Bath (1928-32) and, during this time, began to make drawings of country crafts and farm implements, painting full time from 1932. A friend of Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, he visited them and their families at Great Bardfield in Essex from 1931 while preparing the first book that he both wrote and illustrated, 'Change in the Farm' (1934). Despite his apparently successful development as an artist, he suffered a nervous breakdown following the rejection by Marion Richardson of his proposal of marriage. He was confined to Claybury Mental Hospital for three years (1932-35) and, while there, drew his fellow patients and wrote poetry. He exhibited his watercolours regularly and was elected to the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours (ARWS 1938; RWS 1943) and the New English Art Club (1943). Hennell produced images of South-East England for 'Recording Britain' and, in 1941-42, was commissioned by the Ministry of Information to record aspects of toolmaking and landwork in wartime. When Eric Ravilious died in 1942, Hennell replaced him as Official War Artist in Iceland, the work he produced there being exhibited at the National Gallery. He was later sent to Holland, India and Burma. In 1945, he was captured by Indonesian terrorists in Java and is presumed to have been killed. *Artist's Resale Right may apply to this lot.