01 work, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, Cecil Aldin's Land Girl Ploughing, with Footnotes #147

Cecil Aldin (1870–1935)

A Land Girl Ploughing, c.1918

Oil on canvas

H 91.4 x W 228.6 cm

Imperial War Museum London

The scene shows two grey horses harnessed to a plough being driven by a Land Girl, moving from right to left of the composition. Beyond the girl is a view of the distant countryside. A storm is brewing in the grey sky above their heads. More on this painting

The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLA were commonly known as Land Girls. The Land Army placed women with farms that needed workers, the farmers being their employers. The women picked crops and did all the jobs that the men had done. Notable members include Joan Quennell, later a Member of Parliament, the archaeologist Lily Chitty and the botanist Ethel Thomas. It was disbanded in 1919 but revived in June 1939 under the same name to again organise women to replace workers called up to the military during the Second World War. More on The Women's Land Army

Cecil Aldin - Born in Slough on 28 April 1870, educated at Eastbourne College and Solihull Grammar School. Studied anatomy at South Kensington and animal painting under William Frank Calderon. Early influences included Randolph Caldecott and John Leech. His drawings first made their way into print in The Building News, and began to appear throughout many popular journals and magazines; his work was published in The Graphic in 1891. He also published a short series of fully illustrated books in 1923, Old Manor Houses and Old Inns. His village scenes and rural buildings were executed in chalk, pencil and wash sketching was used for country scenes. Aldin was an enthusiastic sportsman and a Master of Fox Hounds and many of his pictures illustrated hunting.

Cecil started drawing at a very young age. He studied art at the studio of Albert Moore and then the National Art Training School which later became The Royal College of Art. After this he spent a summer with the fine animal painter and teacher, Frank Calderon. 

The birth of his son and daughter inspired his nursery pictures which together with his large sets of the Fallowfield Hunt, Bluemarket Races, Harefield Harriers and Cottesbrook Hunt prints brought him much popularity. An exhibition in Paris in 1909 was received with much acclaim and extended his fame to a wider audience. 

During the First World War Cecil Aldin was in charge of an Army Remount Depot where he befriended Lionel Edwards, Alfred Munnings and G.D. Armour. Sadly he lost his son, Dudley at Vimy Ridge in 1917, which affected him deeply for many years and had a profound effect of his style of work. 

In 1930 Cecil Aldin had to go and live in a warmer climate due to serious attacks of arthritis but he continued to paint and etch, producing some of his best work. He died in London of a heart attack in January 1935 on a short trip back home. More on Cecil Aldin

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