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A Land Girl and the Bail Bull

Evelyn Dunbar1945-01-01

Tate Britain

Tate Britain
London, United Kingdom

Dunbar studied at Rochester and Chelsea Schools of Art and the Royal College. She finished her studies in 1933 and was commissioned to paint murals at Brockley School in Kent the same year. She was appointed an Official War Artist in 1940 and this work was made as a result. The artist stated that it was 'painted at Strood towards the end of the war, about 1944-5. It is an imaginative painting of a Land Girl's work with an outdoor dairy herd on the Hampshire Downs. The bail is the moveable shed where the milking is done'.

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  • Title: A Land Girl and the Bail Bull
  • Creator: Evelyn Dunbar
  • Date: 1945-01-01
  • Provenance: Presented by the War Artists Advisory Committee 1946
  • Physical Dimensions: 914 x 1829 mm
  • Original Title: A Land Girl and the Bail Bull
  • Additional Viewing Notes: The artist wrote (7 May 1956): ‘Painted at Strood towards the end of the war, about 1944–5. It is an imaginative painting of a Land Girl's work with an outdoor dairy herd on the Hampshire Downs. The bail is the movable shed where the milking is done. Soon after dawn in the early summer the girl has to catch and tether the bull: she entices him with a bucket of fodder and hides the chain behind her, ready to snap on to the ring in his nose as soon as it is within her reach - a delicate and dangerous job.’ Published in: Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I
  • Type: Painting
  • Rights: Tate
  • Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain

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