Alan Sorrell | |
|---|---|
 Noted archaeological illustrator | |
| Born | Alan Ernest Sorrell 11 February 1904 Tooting, London, England |
| Died | 21 December 1974(1974-12-21) (aged 70) Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England |
| Education | The Royal College of Art |
| Known for | Watercolour, Archaeological illustration |
| Movement | Neo-romanticism |
| Elected | Royal Watercolour Society |
Alan Ernest Sorrell (11 February 1904 – 21 December 1974) was an English artist and writer best remembered for his archaeological illustrations, particularly his detailed reconstructions of Roman Britain. He was a Senior Assistant Instructor of Drawing atThe Royal College of Art, between 1931–39 and 1946–48. In 1937 he was elected a member of theRoyal Watercolour Society.
Sorrell was born inTooting, London, and moved toSouthend, Essex, at the age of two.[1] The son and second child of Ernest Thomas Sorrell (1861–1910), a jeweller and watchmaker, and his wife Edith Jane Sorrell, née Doody (1867–1951), Alan Sorrell would often go with his father on trips away drawing landscapes as a child.[1] However, most of his childhood was spent confined to a bath chair due to a suspected heart condition.[1] The early death of his father also resulted in Sorrell's being very reclusive.[1]
Sorrell trained at the Southend municipal school of art and, after a brief spell as a commercial artist in London, he attended theRoyal College of Art between 1924 and 1927.[1] Whilst there, he metWilliam Rothenstein who would act as a mentor for Sorrell and became a close friend.[1] In 1928, Sorrell won theBritish Prix de Rome inMural painting and spent the next three years at theBritish School at Rome.[1]
Sorrell returned to England in 1931 and became drawing master at the Royal College of Art where his contemporaries includedGilbert Spencer.[1] He began his archaeological reconstruction drawings after a chance meeting in 1936 withKathleen Kenyon on a dig of a Roman site in Leicester, who asked him to produce illustrations for her article forThe Illustrated London News. More commissions then followed atMaiden Castle, in collaboration withMortimer Wheeler, and at RomanCaerwent andCarleon, in collaboration withCyril Fox and V. E. Nash-Williams of theNational Museum of Wales.[2]
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DuringWorld War II, Sorrell worked in theRoyal Air Force in 1940, and then was transferred to the Air Ministry in 1941, applying his artistic talents to help camouflage aerodromes.[1][3] For a time he worked in the high security Central Intelligence unit atRAF Medmenham, where he was part of a team working on terrain models for bombing missions, and on models of battleships, such as the German battleshipTirpitz.[4] Sorrell later claimed that he had refused to work on terrain models of cities he thought were of "irreplaceable artistic importance".[5] He created artworks of air force life in his spare time as well as completing several short-term commissions from theWar Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, to depict airfields and runway construction. In total WAAC acquired some 26 paintings from Sorrell.[5]
After the war Sorrell's archaeological work was to take up more and more of his time. Commissions came from archaeologists such as ProfessorW. F. Grimes for the LondonMithraeum dig, fromThe Illustrated London News and later from theMinistry of Works.[6] Public awareness of his work was increased by his prolific output and his many publications, starting with 'Roman Britain' (1961), as well drawings commissioned for TV series such asWho Were the British? forAnglia TV. ProfessorBarry Cunliffe wrote:
To those of us whose interests were kindled and nurtured by the remarkable wave of popular archaeology in the 1950s the name of Alan Sorrell was as well known as those ofGlyn Daniel and Sir Mortimer Wheeler. All were experts and scholars in their own fields and all were using their powers of communication to breathe life into the unprepossessing rubble foundations and dreary potsherds that formed the raw material of archaeological research.[7]
Throughout this post-war period, Sorrell still found time for his more imaginative work, which was exhibited at both the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Academy plus other venues. The titles were often evocative, such asThe Fallen Emperors,The Stone Men andThe Dark Tower. A strong characteristic of these paintings is, according to Sorrell, "a sense of the decay of a noble past, and this and their treatment, in its starkness and drama, links them inevitably with his archaeological drawings".[7]
Sorrell was married twice, first to Irene Agnes Mary Oldershaw in 1932; they divorced in 1946. His second marriage was to the watercolour artistElizabeth Sorrell née Tanner in 1947. They lived and raised their family in a small converted chapel inDaws Heath in southeast Essex. They had three children,Richard Sorrell (born 1948), an artist, Mark Sorrell (born 1952), a writer, andJulia Sorrell (born 1955), also an artist.
As an active member of theCampaign to Protect Rural England, Sorrell worked to help preserve ancient trees and woodlands in his local area.[8] This was indicative of hisNeo-Romantic outlook which was reflected in works such asThe Spoilers,[9]The Planting of the trees,[10] andThe Assault which was left unfinished on his easel at the time of his death.[11]
He died in 1974, and is buried in Sutton cemetery,Southend-on-Sea, with his wife Elizabeth, who died in 1991.
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