Sir Robin Philipson, R.A., P.R.S.A., R.S.W. 1916-1992

Warwick, Emscote Lawn School

"I had in mind to paint a series of pictures about the first world war. By chance I entered a local cinema where there was a war film showing... Thereafter I began the series" (Roger Billcliffe, Robin Philipson Retrospective, 1989)

Philipson began a remarkable series of pictures suggested by Joseph Losey's film King and Country in 1964, Far Away being one of the more light-hearted. The picture depicts a group of soldiers huddled around a piano in joyous camaraderie, whilst in the background an enigmatic scantily clad young woman is seen at a doorway which radiant light streams through. Other paintings from the series, including Stone the Crows and Defenders of the Realm depict the tragedy, loss and violence of War which Philipson had witnessed with his own eyes in Burma, images which had returned to him forty years later in recurring nightmares. By comparison Far Away predicts the radiant optimism suggested by the explosive light bursting through the windows of his cathedral interior series (see following lot) which were also begun around 1964. The soldiers are comforted by their shared comradeship, by music and by the promise of sex; the pleasures of home, 'far away' from the battlefields of Europe and the Far East.