Product Description

This collection encompasses the full range of Wootton's art, from his intense early years as official artist to the RAF during WWII, to the very recent past, including his impressions of Concorde and modern high-tech fighter planes. The book begins with commentary from Wootton on his experiences, illustrated by his line drawings and sketches of the people, vehicles and aircraft that surrounded him. It then goes on to present over 70 exquisite plates splendidly reproduced in full colour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52461 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

About the Author
Frank Wootton studied at Eastbourne College of Art under Eric Ravilious. A former president of the Guild of Aviation Artists, Wootton's work can be seen hanging in private and public collections worldwide, including the Imperial War Museum in London, and the National Air & Space Museum in Washington. Frank lived in Sussex up until his death in 1998.

Customer Reviews

Official RAF artist - and it shows!
On the 4th of September, 1939, Frank Wootton went to the Brighton RAF Recruitment Centre. He was 25 years old; he was already known as an artist who liked to depict airplanes. And so he was asked to record some of the work the RCAF was doing. This developed into a full RAF-official artist status, when in June 1944 Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory himself, CiC Allied Air Forces, asked Wootton to go and paint from Normandy airstrips. He was both strafed and shelled, and painted Typhoons and observation Austers; he was taken to the Falaise Gap, and painted Mustangs 'firing-in' east of Dieppe. The latter painting, reproduced here, has a small gash - made by a piece of shrapnel.
The range of paintings reproduced is nice and large: from 1915 (British Scout C) to Concorde. The interesting thing about Wootton is that he does not do a great amount of detail of his aircraft; but they look and feel absolutely right. I am an admirer of the work of Robert Taylor and Nicholas Trudgian, and I believe they both admire Wootton.

There are brilliant paintings of the Vickers Vimy, Hawker Hart, the battle of Habbaniya (with Audaxes!), my favourite Beaufighters, engine maintenance, a field kitchen, Gan runway in the Maldives, as well as the more famous fighers and bombers. There are many short 'stories' with the paintings, which add to the charm.
This is a great volume, with lots of good and some great paintings, and with 69 colour plates overall -some rather small, but most full-page plates.

An absolute classic.