Dangerous Work at Low Tide by Eric Ravilious

Print from Watercolour (1940).

This is a rare Ravilious work, not only because Ravilious seldom depicts people in his paintings, but because there’s a poignant combination of task at hand with sheer beauty of place. Naval officers have been sent to the oyster beds at Whitestable, Kent, to diffuse a German magnetic mine – one of only two washed up on the English coast. But the sun, low upon the horizon, depicts a scene of glass-flat tidal pools and a sky of serene beauty, a beauty that belies the danger that these officers were in fact facing. Two of the men, Commander Obbard and Lieutenant West, were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for their courage, and the painting took pride of place amongst Ravilious’ works when exhibited after the war at the first War Artists’ Exhibition.

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