Spithead Naval Reviews Paintings
Artist Bob Askew is holding an exhibition of paintings of the Spithead Naval Reviews.
He said: "I grew up in the Whiteley area in the 1950s, a couple of miles from the sea, and I have always been interested in the ships and boats on the Solent.
"I took up watercolour painting on my retirement, and I recently started researching the Spithead Naval Reviews. These were spectacular events where the Navy showed off its ships to to the world, as they were reviewed by the Monarch. The ships were ranged in many lines in front of Southsea, Portsmouth and Gosport and right along the Solent. Thousands of spectators came to the sea shore to look at them.
"There were many Reviews in Victoria’s reign, and those prior to the First World War are huge with 59 battleships in 1914. Th is was about the same number as all the battleships of the rest of the world, so the power of the Royal Navy was very evident.
"There were 226 warships in the Coronation Review of 1953, which was the biggest ever, but I became most interested in the inter-war Reviews, which included many of the ships which later took part in World War 2. I decided to paint some watercolours of the Reviews in 1924, 1935 and 1937. I looked at photographs, and researched the individual ships present, to make my own compositions. My first picture was of the visiting modern French battlecruiser Dunkerque, with British ships in the background. My father had been in the Fleet Air Arm, so I then decided to include a Fairey Swordfish flying over the fleet in the next one. "This seemed to work well, so I did I featured a plane in some more, including a Flycatcher, Osprey, Fairey IIID and IIIF. The Flycatcher appropriately flying over moving aircraft carriers. I then thought that it would be good to show the old battlecruiser HMS Tiger in 1924, and the modern HMS Southampton in 1937. I made several more, including bow views of the famous modern battleships HMS Nelson and Rodney, and an overhead view of the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert, from which the King reviewed the fleet."
Mr Askew has a free exhibition of 14 paintings of the Fleet Reviews in Fareham Library until July 17.