Beschreibung:

Lot of 2 prints by Bruce Bairnsfather including: That Evening Star-Shell print framed, 6.25 x 9 in. (sight) Depicts cartoon soldier lying on his stomach with a jug pouring liquid out to the right and a shooting star in the background. Where Did That One Go To? print framed, 5.75 x 7.75 in. (sight) Depicts diverse group huddled beneath bunker as explosion goes off above and in the background. Bruce Bairnsfather was a British cartoonist, best known for his "Old Bill" cartoons widely featured during World War I in the British magazine, The Bystander. Bairnsfather participated in World War I by serving in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a second lieutenant, and by serving with a machine gun unit in France. After an injury sustained from the Second Battle of Ypres, Bairnsfather was moved to the 34th Division Headquarters on Salisbury Plain where he came up with his "Old Bill" cartoons about life in the trenches. He was eventually appointed a War Office to draw for other Allied forces, and enjoyed popularity and film work after the war. Bairnsfather went on to become the official cartoonist to the American forces in Europe during World War II, primarily contributing his humorous cartoons to magazines, but also completing other artistic work for American forces such as aircraft nose art. Bairnsfather was uniquely gifted at making humor out of otherwise grave situations, and it is for this talent, and its most popular embodiment, "Old Bill," that he is most remembered. Provenance:The Alan Culpin Collection of World War I Art