Nicolas
Trudgian. Aviation art print by
Nicolas Trudgian of Hawker
Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft during the Battle of Britain
and the Normandy Landings. Nicolas Trudgian's aviation art prints available from
aviationprints.co.uk.
Having
graduated from art college, Nicolas Trudgian spent many years as a
professional illustrator before turning to a career in fine art painting.
His crisp style of realism, attention to detail, compositional skills and
bright use of colours, immediately found favour with collectors and demand
for his original work soared on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, more
than a decade after becoming a fine art painter, Nicolas Trudgian is
firmly established within a tiny, elite group of aviation artists whose
works are genuinely collected world-wide. When
he paints an aircraft you can be sure he has researched it in every detail
and when he puts it over a particular airfield, the chances are he has
paid it a recent visit. Even when he paints a sunset over a tropical
island, or mist hanging over a valley in China, most probably he has seen
it with his own eyes.
Nick was born and raised in the
seafaring city of Plymouth, the port from which the Pilgrim Fathers set
sail in 1620, and where Sir Francis Drake played bowls while awaiting the
Spanish Armada. Growing up in a house close to the railway station within
a busy military city, the harbour always teeming with naval vessels and
the skies above resonating with the sounds of naval aircraft, it was not
at all surprising the young Nick became fascinated with trains, boats and
aircraft. It was from his father, himself a talented
artist, that Nick acquired his love of drawing and surrounded by so much
that was inspiring, there was never a shortage of ideas for pictures. His
talent began to show at an early age and although he did well enough at
school, he always spent a disproportionate amount of time drawing. People
talked about him becoming a Naval officer or an architect but in 1975
Nick's mind was made up. When he told his careers teacher he wanted to go
to art school the man said, 'Now come on, what do you really want to
do?"
After leaving school Nick began a
one-year foundation course at the Plymouth College of Art. Now armed with
an impressive portfolio containing paintings of jet aircraft, trains, even
wildlife, he was immediately accepted at every college he applied to join.
He chose a course at the Falmouth College of Art in Cornwall specialising
in technical illustration and paintings of machines and vehicles for
industry. It was perfect for Nick, and he was to become one of the star
pupils. One of the lecturers commented at the time: "Every college
needs someone with a talent like Nick to raise the standards sky high; he
carried all the other students along with him, and created an effect which
will last for years to come." Two weeks after leaving art college
Nick blew every penny he had on a trip to South Africa to ride the great
steam trains across the desert, sketching them at every opportunity.
Returning to England, in best traditions of all young
artists, he struggled to make a living. Paintings by an unknown artist
didn't fetch much despite the painstaking effort and time Nick put into
each work, so when the college he had recently left offered him a job as a
lecturer, he jumped at the chance. The money was good and he discovered
that he really enjoyed teaching.
Throughout the 1970s Nick was much
involved with a railway preservation society near Plymouth and it was
through the railway society that he had his first pictures reproduced as
prints. But Nick felt he needed to advance his career and in summer 1985
Nick moved away from Cornwall to join an energetic new design studio in
Wiltshire. Here he painted detailed artwork for many major companies
including Rolls Royce, General Motors, Volvo Trucks, Alfa Romeo and, to
his delight, the aviation and defence industries. He remembers the job as
exciting though stressful, often requiring him to work right through the
night to meet a client's deadline. Here he learned to be disciplined and
fast.Towards the end of the 1980's Nick had the chance to work for the
Military Gallery. This was the break that for years he had been striving
towards and with typical enthusiasm, flung himself into his new role.
After completing a series of aviation posters, including a gigantic
painting to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Royal Air
Force, Nick's first aviation scene to be published as a limited edition
was launched by the Military Gallery in 1991. Despite the fact he was
unknown in the field, it was an immediate success.
Spitfire Country by Nicolas Trudgian.
A typical scene from a bright August morning in that momentous summer of 1940. Having climbed into the dawn sky at daybreak, the Spitfires of No 603 Squadron have already been in action, and with more heavy raids on the plotters table, they scurry back to Biggin Hill to re-arm and refuel. A Messerschmitt Me109, shot down during the previous days fighting, lies discarded in a hay field, its lucky pilot having escaped with his life. Meanwhile, the beautiful Kent countryside comes awake as it prepares for the toils of another glorious summers day.
Item Code : NT0325
Spitfire Country by Nicolas Trudgian. - Editions Available
Like the Messerschmitt 109, its great adversary throughout almost six years of aerial combat, the Spitfire was a fighter par excellence. Good as many other types may have been, these two aircraft became symbols of the two opposing air forces they represented. Their confrontation, which began in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, continued without interruption until the last days of World War Two. From an air force teetering on extinction in the dark days of 1940, by the summer of 1944 the pilots of RAF Fighter Command had fought their way back to become top dogs. And when the invasion of northern France came, they swept over the beaches in force, cutting deep into enemy occupied territory, hammering the enemy in the air and on the ground. Key to this air superiority was the supreme performance of the Spitfire, its ability to out-fly the Luftwaffes best, and the wily leadership of the pilots who had survived the early air battles of the war. Among the best was 26 year old Pete Brothers.........
The success of Operation Bodenplatte, on January 1, 1945, was to be achieved by mass surprise attacks on British and American bases in France, Belgium and Holland. It was a battle fought at great cost to the Luftwaffe. During the battles some 300 Luftwaffe aircraft were lost. Though 200 Allied aircraft were destroyed, most on the ground, pilot losses were light. Nicolas Trudgians brilliant painting takes us right into the action above the Allied air base at Eindhoven. Me262 jets join a concentration of Me109s and Fw190s of JG-3 fighter wing, as they hurtle across the airfield in an assault that lasted 23 minutes, while Spitfires from 414 Sqn RCAF do their best to repel the attack. On the ground Typhoon fighters of 439 Sqn take a hammering.
Item Code : DHM2028
Operation Bodenplatte by Nicolas Trudgian. - Editions Available
A classic head-to-head combat between Squadron Leader Sandy Johnstone in his Spitfire and an Me109 over the south coast of England on 25th August, 1940. With 602 Squadron scrambled to intercept an approaching raid. The Commanding Officer notches up his second victory of the day.
Item Code : DHM2122
Head to Head by Nicolas Trudgian - Editions Available
When No 49 Squadron Lancasters bombed the S.S. barracks at Berchtesgaden on 25th April 1945, its aircrews completed a campaign that had begun 5 and a half years earlier in September, 1939. From the very beginning, 49 Squadron were in the thick of the action with one of their pilots, Roderick Learoyd, winning Bomber Commands first Victoria Cross. In 1942 it was Lancasters of 49 Squadron that led the epic raid on Schneider armament and locomotive works at Le Creusot. In 1943 they flew the shuttle-bombing raids to Friedrichshafen and Spezia, attacked the heavily defended rocket sites at Peenemunde, and in preparation for D-Day, bombarded the coastal batteries in Normandy and the V-1 sites in the caves by the river Loire, north of Paris. Later in 1944 the squadron notably took part in the raid on German Baltic Fleet, continuing to fly important bombing missions against the Nazi war machine until the final collapse of the Third Reich. So it was fitting that an RAF squadron whose history we.........
With the Battle of Britain won, and the first chinks in Goerings armour exposed, RAF Fighter Command is at last able to carry the war to the enemy. It is the bittersweet winter of 41. Mk Vb Spitfires, having taken off as the first streaks of dawn spread across the morning sky, return to a snow-covered airfield after a dawn patrol over the Channel. Inhabitants of the sleepy English village begin to stir with the familiar sound of Merlin engines, counting each and every one of their fighter boys home.
Item Code : DHM1880
Winter of 41 by Nicolas Trudgian. - Editions Available
Frustrated by the absence of Luftwaffe aircraft over the Normandy beaches on D-Day, Allied fighter pilots were spoiling for a fight. When a dozen Ju88s appeared over Gold Beach on the following morning, June 7, 1944, the patrolling Spitfires of 401 Squadron wasted no time in getting into the fray. At just after 0800 hours twelve Junkers Ju88s appeared out of the 2000ft. cloud base, intent on making a diving attack on the heavily populated beachhead. Wheeling their Spitfires into the on-coming attack, Squadron Leader Cameron, C.O. of 401 Squadron, called his pilots to pick their own targets, and all hell broke loose. In the ensuing dogfight 401 Squadrons Canadian pilots destroyed no fewer than six of the Ju88s, and the attack on the beach was averted. Nicolas Trudgian recreates the scene as Flying Officer Arthur Bishop, son of WWI Ace Billy Bishop, brings down one of the Ju88s that day. With its starboard engine on fire, and its hydraulics shot away, the doomed Luftwaffe fighter-bomb.........
