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The Calm Before the Storm by Robert Taylor. - Military Art

The Calm Before the Storm by Robert Taylor.


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The Calm Before the Storm by Robert Taylor.

Dawn had broken to reveal another glorious day in paradise, and on board the USS Arizona and the repair ship USS Vestal alongside, the crew were taking it easy. All next week they would be hard at work preparing for sea, but today was Sunday, and that meant light duties. On the Arizona, the duty crew were preparing the stern of the battleship, erecting the awnings for the ships band at Morning Colors. The young officer in charge smiled approvingly, it was an inspiring scene and he thought that the recently overhauled battleship had never looked more impressive. But within the hour he would glance skyward, and a frown of puzzlement crease his forehead as, out of nowhere, Japanese carrier-based aircraft were descending on the unsuspecting naval base. As he registers the bright red circles on their wings, the blood froze in his veins. He realized that hell had come to Pearl Harbor! Then, just before 08.10hrs, the unthinkable happened. A bomb from a Nakajima B5N Kate high-altitude bomber penetrated the ship's armor plated deck and exploded in the forward magazine. Within seconds a cataclysmic blast ripped through the Arizona, devastating the mighty ship which would burn for two days, taking with her the lives of nearly twelve hundred men. In tribute to all those who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor on that infamous day Robert Taylor has created his poignant new landmark painting. The Arizona has since become the focal point for the memorial at Pearl Harbor and this moving piece portrays this proud ship as those who survived would surely like to remember her - in all her glory prior to the attack.
Item Code : DHM6177The Calm Before the Storm by Robert Taylor. - This Edition
TYPEEDITION DETAILSSIZESIGNATURESOFFERSYOUR PRICEPURCHASING
PRINTSigned limited edition of 375 prints.

Paper size 33.5 inches x 24 inches (85cm x 61cm) Conter, Louis (signed in person)
Cook, Lonnie (signed in person)
Hetrick, Cleardon (signed in person)
Langdell, Joseph (signed in person)
Wentzlaff, Edward (companion print)
+ Artist : Robert Taylor


Signature(s) value alone : £60
£40 Off!Now : £210.00

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Aloha Hawaii by Randall Wilson.
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Pearl Harbor, USS California, by Anthony Saunders
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The Raid on Pearl Harbor, 7th December 1941 by Ivan Berryman
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Other editions of this item : The Calm Before the Storm by Robert Taylor. DHM6177
TYPEEDITION DETAILSSIZESIGNATURESOFFERSYOUR PRICEPURCHASING
ARTIST
PROOF
Limited edition of 25 artist proofs. Paper size 33.5 inches x 24 inches (85cm x 61cm) Conter, Louis (signed in person)
Cook, Lonnie (signed in person)
Hetrick, Cleardon (signed in person)
Langdell, Joseph (signed in person)
Wentzlaff, Edward (companion print)
+ Artist : Robert Taylor


Signature(s) value alone : £60
£40 Off!Now : £325.00VIEW EDITION...
REMARQUERemarque edition of 15 prints.

SOLD OUT.
Paper size 33.5 inches x 24 inches (85cm x 61cm) Conter, Louis (signed in person)
Cook, Lonnie (signed in person)
Hetrick, Cleardon (signed in person)
Langdell, Joseph (signed in person)
Wentzlaff, Edward (companion print)
+ Artist : Robert Taylor


Signature(s) value alone : £60
SOLD
OUT
VIEW EDITION...
General descriptions of types of editions :



Extra Details : The Calm Before the Storm by Robert Taylor.
About all editions :

Supplied with companion print The Way We Were, size 24 inches x 13 inches (61cm x 33cm)


Signatures on this item
*The value given for each signature has been calculated by us based on the historical significance and rarity of the signature. Values of many pilot signatures have risen in recent years and will likely continue to rise as they become more and more rare.
NameInfo


Chief Warrant Officer Edward Wentzlaff USN (deceased)
*Signature Value : £10

Edward Louis Wentzlaff was born on November 16th, 1917, entered the U.S. Navy on December 8th, 1937 and he was aboard the USS Arizona on December 7th, 1941 during the Pearl Harbor attack. Wentzlaff, one of just 335 aboard the ship to survive, was spared because he ran to his battle station instead of fleeing below. Aside from singed eyebrows and hair from the fires that raged on board, he wasn't injured. Ordered to abandon ship, he was too terrified to jump overboard, where flames 3 feet high leapt on the surface of the water from fuel pouring out of the ship. Instead, with another sailor, he ran down a gangway to an admiral's barge, which was tied up to the ship. As the Arizona rapidly sank - the ship went down in just nine minutes - it began to drag the barge down with it. Wentzlaff frantically cut it loose, while the other crew member started the engine. Waves of Japanese planes continued to strafe the harbor, and the two rescued any survivors they could. Wentzlaff was one day away from the end of his enlistment period on the day of the attack, and had plans to go into the resort business in Wisconsin with a Navy buddy, but he wasn't permitted to leave the Navy as America's involvement in World War II began. He served in a variety of roles throughout the war, and was on the USS Yorktown, which was sunk at the Battle of Midway. Wentzlaff left the Navy in 1946 as a Chief Warrant Officer. He died on 10th September 2013 at the age of 95.


Lieutenant Commander Joseph Langdell USN (deceased)
*Signature Value : £10

Joseph Kopcho Langdell was born October 12th 1914 in Wilton, New Hampshire. He graduated from Boston University in 1938 with a degree in business administration and worked as an accountant until he decided to enlist in the Navy. He attended an officers' training program in Chicago where Langdell's math skills landed him an assignment working with Navy photographers on a way to better measure the accuracy of a ship's guns. He trained for the job on Ford Island, a small patch of land in Pearl Harbor. Langdell was not aboard the ship the morning of the attack. Because of a temporary assignment, he was sleeping in a barracks about 100 yards from the ship in Honolulu. He was awakened by the Japanese attack and from his bed he heard the sound of the Japanese dive bombers as they approached and strafed the battleships lined up in the harbor. 'If I had been aboard, I would have been killed in that No. 2 turret. That was the one that blew up.'. Langdell helped injured sailors and Marines find medical care in a hospital on the island. In the days that followed, he helped recover the bodies of some of his fallen shipmates. Langdell continued to serve in the Navy through World War II. He died on 4th February 2015 and at the age of 100, the oldest living survivor of the Arizona.
Quartermaster Louis Conter USN
*Signature Value : £10

Crewman of USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. Conter went to flight school after Pearl Harbor, earning his wings to fly PBY patrol bombers, which the Navy used to look for submarines and bomb enemy targets. He flew 200 combat missions in the Pacific with a 'Black Cats' squadron, which conducted dive bombing at night in planes painted black.One night in 1943 he and his crew had to avoid a dozen or so nearby sharks after they were shot down near New Guinea. When one sailor expressed doubt they would survive, Conter responded 'baloney.' Don't ever panic in any situation. Survive is the first thing you tell them. Don't panic or you're dead,' he said. They were quiet and treaded water until another plane came and dropped them a lifeboat hours later. In the late 1950s, he was made the Navy's first SERE officer - which is an acronym for survival, evasion, resistance and escape. He spent the next decade training Navy pilots and crew on how to survive if they're shot down in the jungle and captured as a prisoner of war. Some of his pupils used his instruction to live through years as POWs in Vietnam.


Seaman Clarendon Hetrick USN (deceased)
*Signature Value : £15

Clarendon Hetrick was born 26th May 1923, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the age of 17 on his parents' signature and reported for training in San Diego in the latter half of 1940. He joined the USS Arizona in January 1941. On the morning of 7th December, Hetrick was in the latrine, about half-shaved, when the Japanese attack began. 'I ran out on the forward deck, looked up and saw one airplane going across the sky with a red meatball on it. I knew what was going on right away then.' Hetrick headed for battle station below deck, where he had been trained to help move ammunition for the big guns. As the ship began to fill with smoke, the men were ordered to leave. The Arizona was already starting to sink as Hetrick made his way to the edge of the deck. He could see no lifeboats, but he watched as other crewmen leaped into the water and half-swam, half-walked the short distance to Ford Island, where the Arizona had been moored. He looked at the water and jumped. Hetrick was assigned to the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier. He would later join the USS Saratoga, fighting in battles across the Pacific Ocean until the end of World War II. He was injured in fighting at Iwo Jima. In 1949, his stint with the Navy finished, Hetrick enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He died on 18th April 2016, aged 92.
Seaman Lonnie Cook USN (deceased)
*Signature Value : £15

Lonnie David Cook was born 19th November 1920 in Morris, Oklahoma. He graduated from high school in 1939 and, with few jobs available in rural Oklahoma, enrolled at Connors State Agricultural College in Warner, Oklahoma. By early 1940, he decided to join the Navy and on 2nd July he boarded the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. The Arizona was moored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, in a row of battleships, the crews on edge as they waited for news about America's inevitable entry into the world war. Cook, a 21-year-old seaman first class, had $60 in his pocket, his winnings from a craps game the night before, and he was ready for a day in Honolulu on liberty. As he closed the locker door, he felt a rumbling. The chief turret captain burst into the hallway with the news: The Japanese were attacking. Cook raced for his battle station, inside the turret gun pit, where he helped load primer, gunpowder and a shell. The ship shuddered. The lights went out. Smoke filled the room. He and the other men stayed in the turret, waiting for the strafing to end. They stuffed their t-shirts into side ports, fearful of a gas attack. Finally, they climbed down onto the starboard quarterdeck. The Arizona had sunk low enough that Cook was able to step off the deck onto the launch, which took him to Ford Island, where he remained the rest of the day. After the attack on 7th December 1941, Cook was assigned to another ship, the USS Patterson, then two months later, transferred to the Aylwin, a destroyer. The Aylwin was part of a task force that fought in a battle in the Coral Sea and, a month later, part of the forces in the battle of Midway. He was discharged in 1948. Lonnie passed away on 31st July 2019, aged 98.
Artist Details : Robert Taylor
Click here for a full list of all artwork by Robert Taylor


Robert Taylor

The name Robert Taylor has been synonymous with aviation art over a quarter of a century. His paintings of aircraft, more than those of any other artist, have helped popularise a genre which at the start of this remarkable artist's career had little recognition in the world of fine art. When he burst upon the scene in the mid-1970s his vibrant, expansive approach to the subject was a revelation. His paintings immediately caught the imagination of enthusiasts and collectors alike . He became an instant success. As a boy, Robert seemed always to have a pencil in his hand. Aware of his natural gift from an early age, he never considered a career beyond art, and with unwavering focus, set out to achieve his goal. Leaving school at fifteen, he has never worked outside the world of art. After two years at the Bath School of Art he landed a job as an apprentice picture framer with an art gallery in Bath, the city where Robert has lived and worked all his life. Already competent with water-colours the young apprentice took every opportunity to study the works of other artists and, after trying his hand at oils, quickly determined he could paint to the same standard as much of the art it was his job to frame. Soon the gallery was selling his paintings, and the owner, recognising Roberts talent, promoted him to the busy picture-restoring department. Here, he repaired and restored all manner of paintings and drawings, the expertise he developed becoming the foundation of his career as a professional artist. Picture restoration is an exacting skill, requiring the ability to emulate the techniques of other painters so as to render the damaged area of the work undetectable. After a decade of diligent application, Robert became one of the most capable picture restorers outside London. Today he attributes his versatility to the years he spent painstakingly working on the paintings of others artists. After fifteen years at the gallery, by chance he was introduced to Pat Barnard, whose military publishing business happened also to be located in the city of Bath. When offered the chance to become a full-time painter, Robert leapt at the opportunity. Within a few months of becoming a professional artist, he saw his first works in print. Roberts early career was devoted to maritime paintings, and he achieved early success with his prints of naval subjects, one of his admirers being Lord Louis Mountbatten. He exhibited successfully at the Royal Society of Marine Artists in London and soon his popularity attracted the attention of the media. Following a major feature on his work in a leading national daily newspaper he was invited to appear in a BBC Television programme. This led to a string of commissions for the Fleet Air Arm Museum who, understandably, wanted aircraft in their maritime paintings. It was the start of Roberts career as an aviation artist. Fascinated since childhood by the big, powerful machines that man has invented, switching from one type of hardware to another has never troubled him. Being an artist of the old school, Robert tackled the subject of painting aircraft with the same gusto as with his large, action-packed maritime pictures - big compositions supported by powerful and dramatic skies, painted on large canvases. It was a formula new to the aviation art genre, at the time not used to such sweeping canvases, but one that came naturally to an artist whose approach appeared to have origins in an earlier classical period. Roberts aviation paintings are instantly recognisable. He somehow manages to convey all the technical detail of aviation in a traditional and painterly style, reminiscent of the Old Masters. With uncanny ability, he is able to recreate scenes from the past with a carefully rehearsed realism that few other artists ever manage to achieve. This is partly due to his prodigious research but also his attention to detail: Not for him shiny new factory-fresh aircraft looking like museum specimens. His trade mark, flying machines that are battle-scarred, worse for wear, with dings down the fuselage, chips and dents along the leading edges of wings, oil stains trailing from engine cowlings, paintwork faded with dust and grime; his planes are real! Roberts aviation works have drawn crowds in the international arena since the early 1980s. He has exhibited throughout the US and Canada, Australia, Japan and in Europe. His one-man exhibition at the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC was hailed as the most popular art exhibition ever held there. His paintings hang in many of the worlds great aviation museums, adorn boardrooms, offices and homes, and his limited edition prints are avidly collected all around the world. A family man with strong Christian values, Robert devotes most of what little spare time he has to his home life. Married to Mary for thirty five years, they have five children, all now grown up. Neither fame nor fortune has turned his head. He is the same easy-going, gentle character he was when setting out on his painting career all those years ago, but now with a confidence that comes with the knowledge that he has mastered his profession.

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