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Hubert Arthur Finney
(1905 - 1991)
Amy Ironing, circa 1953
On Loan
Hubert Arthur Finney (1905 - 1991)
Size:
Height – 21.3cm
Width – 41.5cm
Between March 1977 and November 1978, Finney produced a 63-page memoir in which he examined his life from early childhood to his experiences serving with the Civil Defense during the Second World War. The extract below is taken from this manuscript:
‘During the early part of the Battle of Britain, I would go down to an Anderson shelter in the garden of the house, in which I rented a room and the tenant above me a woman with two young children also shared the shelter through the long night while the German planes did what they liked in the sky above because except for barrage balloons and our little aircraft fire we had no defences in the beginning of the second year of the war. On the night of the great fire of London when I would see the red glow increasing over central London, It was my day off from duty, and when I was in my room at Hammersmith I could hear the German planes approaching at about 6:30 pm and I watched the fire gradually increasing around the city centre and this went on until almost midnight.To pass the time away, being on my own I put a records on, the record of Casals playing Bach’s, Come Sweet Death‚ was my favourite one.’
The aircraft depicted is a Boeing 707 which first went into service in 1957/8.
Finney exhibited with the Civil Defence Group of artists throughout the war, and his soft, aerial views added a distinctive element to these shows. He returned to the subject of aircraft as a source of inspiration for his compositions throughout his career
Oil on canvas, (private collection)
A reclusive figure whose work has remained largely unseen, Finney studied under Eric Gill before winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in the early 1920’s; his closest friends there were Charles Mahoney,(1903-1968), Gerald Ososki (1903-1981) and Barnett Freedman (1901-1958). Finney had the good fortune to attend the RCA as part of a golden generation, many of whom went on to become some of Britain’s best loved artists (amongst them Ravilious, Bawden, Hepworth, Moore, Dunbar, Sorrell, and Piper). After a travelling scholarship to Rome, in 1929, Finney returned to become a teacher at Chelsea School of Art – working alongside Henry Moore who was in charge of the Sculpture Department and Graham Sutherland, the Department of Design.
From 1927-1934 he exhibited at the NEAC. In 1935 his painting Mother and Child was acquired by Carlisle Art Gallery. During WW2 Finney worked for the light rescue service of the Civil Defense.
After the war he taught part time under Anthony Betts at Reading University and was in charge of life drawing there when he retired in 1970. Although he was reluctant to show his work he did exhibit at the RA Summer exhibition (in 1950 and 1954) and the Portrait Society and at The Paris Salon. A large solo exhibition took place at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Education in 1964, and at The Lightbox, Woking, in 2022.
We are grateful to Nicholas Finney and David Buckman for assistance.
