Amongst the many genres of aviation, some seem to attract more attention from artists than others. World War II and post-war military for example are very popular. However one category which gets much less attention is gliding (even though there is a specific Guild award ‘The Margaret Kahn Trophy’ given for the best gliding-related oil painting exhibited at the Annual).
As someone who has flown gliders myself, I was interested to read about the Gliding Heritage Centre based at Lasham in Hampshire. Thinking this would provide an interesting venue for a sketching day I arranged a visit for Saturday 12th July.
The museum, founded in 2012, aims to preserve the history of British Gliding by maintaining, displaying and, where possible, flying a large collection of historic gliders which are kept in two purpose-built hangars.
There were too many artworks produced to describe them all here but the photos will add a flavour of the diverse styles and techniques used. Phil Hadley and Rob Hames ran an informative critique at the day’s end, and despite the heat, I think some great work was produced. I was particularly impressed how many artists had successfully portrayed the gliders as if ‘in flight’. Not always easy thing to do.
Throughout our visit we were looked after by Roger Marson and museum volunteers, John Carpenter, Tom Holliday and Daniel Tyrkiel. Thank you guys – your knowledge and enthusiasm for gliding added so much to our enjoyment of the day at Lasham.
This was a hugely enjoyable event and I’m sure we will return to Lasham in the future. And hopefully we can look forward to the submission of more gliding-related paintings for next year’s exhibitions! David Livesley GAvA South East Region Organiser

David Livesley GAvA
South East Regional Organiser