Miss Earhart’s Arrival

Increasingly during the 1930s Walter Sickert scanned the popular press for visual source material for his work. One of the most audacious uses of a contemporary news story was his painting Miss Earhart’s Arrival, which took as its subject the solo flight across the Atlantic of American aviator, Amelia Earhart (1898–1937). Charles Lindbergh had first achieved this milestone of flight history in 1927, but five years later Earhart became the first woman, and only the second person, to complete the epic journey alone. She departed from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland on 20 May 1932 in a red Lockheed Vega plane (now in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum, Washington). Despite a turbulent crossing, during which time her altimeter failed, an electrical storm sent the plane in a flat spin owing to ice on the wings, and one of her engines caught fire, she arrived safely in Ireland just under fifteen hours later.1 The next day she was flown in a Paramount News aeroplane from Londonderry to Stanley Park Aerodrome, Blackpool, and from there to Hanworth Air Park, Middlesex where a large crowd had gathered to welcome her. Sickert’s painting is based upon a press photograph of her arrival at Hanworth which appeared on the front page of the Daily Sketch, accompanied by the headline, ‘Welcome “Lady Lindy”: Heroine of the Air Reaches London in a Storm’ (fig.1).2

Aviation was one of the most exciting and dynamic innovations of the early twentieth century and even its dangers served to heighten public interest in the early pioneers. The same front page which announced Earhart’s arrival also reported the tragic deaths of E.V. Barton, a Daily Sketch cameraman, and a pilot, Major I.N. Clarke, killed when their plane crashed in thick fog on their way back from reporting the story. Aviators were the undisputed heroes of the day and the fascination with female fliers, in particular, was insatiable. Earhart was popular because of her youth and the natural counterpoint she presented to her male compatriot Charles Lindbergh (hence her nickname, Lady Lindy). She had been a household name since 1928, after becoming the first woman to cross the Atlantic as a passenger (with two other male pilots). Since then she had sustained the public’s interest through an organised publicity campaign run by her agent and future husband, George Palmer Putnam.3 Appearances on advertising posters and in radio shows, the publication of an autobiography in 1928 and a job as aviation editor for Cosmopolitan Magazine, all fed the public’s obsession with her. Following the 1932 Atlantic feat, media interest and public excitement about her reached new levels.