Description
IThe invasion of Poland by Germany in September 1939 was the event that sparked the Second World War. All the figures and the background of the hut in Aldershot, Surrey, depicted in Osmund Caine’s painting were sketched on the spot while Caine was training for military service. He could not remember the names of his companions in the hut, but remembered that the NCO in charge of his platoon was a Sergeant Walker. He later recounted: ‘It was a nice life but we were all strangers’. He made five studies for the painting and drew out the full-size canvas ready to be painted but delayed competing it until 1989. In a letter written to the Government Art Collection in 2001 Caine wrote:

'The reason I hesitated so long before completing the painting was because I felt I should do life studies for the three nudes. However after forty years I decided to finish the picture with the three nudes painted from my own knowledge of the human form and I am now glad I did so…'

Painter and stained glass maker, Osmund Caine, was born in Manchester in 1914. He studied art at the Birmingham College of Art, before re-locating to London where he first worked at Kingston School of Art from 1948. He later taught and became head of the graphic design faculty at Twickenham College of Technology where he championed vocational courses for almost twenty years. There he established a reputation as an encouraging teacher who accepted students onto courses from wide cultural backgrounds often judging them on their artistic merits above strict academic qualifications. During his lifetime he exhibited work in a number of galleries and his work was collected internationally. His last solo retrospective was held at the Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham in 1998. In addition to being a talented painter and stained glass designer, Caine was an accomplished musician. He died in London in 2004.