ANTHONY GROSS - FRANCIS, Julian (author). My Brush is My Sword. Anthony Gross, War Artist. The Fleece Press. 2022.
Landscape 4to; publisher's russet-red fine cloth-backed marbled paper covered pinkish-red boards heightened in metallic inks by Louise Brockman, with onlaid paper label to spine, map endpapers; pp. [x], 11-172 + [i], including index; profusely and attractively illustrated throughout, largely in fine matt colours, including folding and tipped-in plates; a fine copy, as new.
First edition, limited to only 330 copies and printed on Munken Pure uncoated paper. An authoritative and well-researched and finely illustrated book on the work of the official war artist Anthony Gross during World War II.
Anthony Imre Alexander Gross CBE RA (1905-1984) was a war artist, painter, print maker and film director who had a long and distinguished career alongside other war artists of the period, such as Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, and Edward Ardizzone, but whose work is much lesser known. This monograph celebrates a talented artist who studied at various studios around Europe including at the Slade (under Henry Tonks), and at the École des Beaux Arts, and the Académie Julian, in Paris.
Eric Kennington proposed him as an official war artist to the War Artists' Advisory Committee and he was accepted, going on to operate in various theatres of war including the Egyptian, Syrian, Kurdistan, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Mesopotamian. He also accompanied the 8th Army's North African Campaign and the D-Day invasion of Northern France, and witnessed the devastation of Caen and Bayeux. Later he travelled with the Allied Forces into liberated Paris, and then on to Germany.
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