Albert Richards

Catalogue entry

N05728 PARATROOPS OUTSIDE BRéVILLE 1944

Inscr. ‘Albert Richards’ b.r.
Watercolour, 22 1/8×31 (56×78·5).
Presented by the War Artists' Advisory Committee 1946.
Exh: National War Pictures, National Gallery, 1945, and R.A., October–November 1945 (770).
Repr: V. & A., Twentieth Century British Water-Colours, 1958, pl.38.

There is a typed label on the back of this picture with the following words: ‘9 Bn., Paratroops outside Bréville (there to stay)’. Bréville is a village between Caen and the sea and was the scene of a successful battle waged by the Parachute Regiment of the 6th Airborne Division on 12 June 1944. The taking of Bréville closed a gap in the Allied arc of advance that the Germans never attempted to reopen. (Information from W. P. Mayes, Imperial War Museum, 7 November 1962.)

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II

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