Overall: 56cm (21in) x 63cm (25in)
Provenance: Artist’s studio.
Watercolour on paper. A T-class submarine with Old Portsmouth in the background. Inscribed by the artist ‘View from Fort Blockhouse, Portsmouth across harbour entrance’, and signed and dated lower right ‘John Worsley / 65’.
The present watercolour was made by the artist John Worsley on his return from captivity in Marlag und Milag Nord PoW camp in northern Germany in 1945. Worsley’s stay in Marlag ‘O’ was made famous by his involvement in the construction of ‘Albert RN’ - a dummy used as a stand-in at head counts. Albert was used twice before being discovered. Firstly, in giving an escaper four days head start before a being reported missing; and secondly when covering an escape attempt from the bath house outside the camp. Albert was ultimately taken prisoner in the subsequent searches. His adventures were brought to public attention in 1953 with the release of the ‘Albert RN’ starring Jack Warner, Anthony Steel, Robert Beatty and the ubiquitous Anton Diffring as SS Hauptsturmführer Schultz. For the movie, Worsley supplied a second ‘Albert’.
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John Godfrey Bernard Worsley (1919-2000) grew up in Kenya and was educated at Brighton College, and Goldsmiths' School of Art. After graduating, in 1938, he secured work as a commercial illustrator. Worsley joined the Royal Navy and spent three years on convoy escort duty in the Atlantic and the North Sea. He was aboard HMS Laurentic when it was torpedoed and sunk in November 1940. His painting of that incident, based on sketches he made at the time in an open lifeboat, plus his drawings of wartime life at sea gained the attention of Kenneth Clark – the director of War Artists' Advisory Committee – who appointed him as one of the two full-time artists attached to the Commander-in-Chief's staff, Malta.
In 1943, Worsley was amongst the rescue party sent to establish a base on Lussin Piccola in the North Adriatic, only to find it overrun by Germans. Worsley was taken to Germany where he was interrogated, spending much of the next two months in solitary confinement before being sent to the infamous POW camp Marlag ‘O’, near Bremen. Amongst the other prisoners was journalist Guy Morgan who had been badly wounded and was to be repatriated, smuggling out a number of Worsley’s drawings in the plaster cast on his arm. As a prisoner, Worsley documented camp life with warmth, accuracy, and characteristic humour using supplies provided by the Red Cross. He also used his artistic expertise in the forging of identity papers, and of course in an ingenious escape attempt requiring the construction Albert RN. After the war, Worsley remained under Naval engagement, painting portraits of high-ranking officers for the Admiralty, including Field Marshal Montgomery, and the First Sea Lord, Sir John Cunningham, before going on to a highly successful career as an illustrator.