Cuthbert Orde Art

Cuthbert Orde was born on December 18, 1888, in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He was an artist and First World War pilot. He is best known for his war art, especially his portraits of Allied Battle of Britain pilots. In the early 1920s, he had a painting studio in Paris. In his book Pilots Of Fighter Command: Sixty Four Portraits, Orde wrote an essay explaining the circumstances of his portraits of World War II pilots. Having been hired to produce illustrations of bomber stations in the summer of 1940, Air Commodore Sir Harald Peake from the Air Ministry saw some of Orde’s drawings and was impressed by his portraiture. It was the height of the Battle of Britain and public attention was focused on the fighter pilots. Peake asked Orde to make a large number of portraits of them, Orde enthusiastically agreed and at the start of September set off to work. It is unclear how many portraits he drew in the year or so with Fighter Command. Some sources say up to 300, though Orde only lists 160 in his book Pilots Of Fighter Command: Sixty Four Portraits. Taking around two hours per picture, Orde drew men whose names have become familiar to those interested in the history of the Battle, Douglas Bader, Sailor Malan, Robert Stanford Tuck, Johnnie Johnson, Archie McKellar and John Freeborn. He usually created monochrome pictures of the men using charcoal and white chalk, though some color portraits were painted, such as that of Bob Stanford Tuck and the second portrait of Sailor Malan. He passed away on December 19, 1968.