Description
Julian Cory-Wright, who died just two months short of his 28th birthday, was a gifted artist, recording people and places encountered from his schooldays through office life and military training to his ill-fated departure from Tilbury Docks.
From Norfolk to Normandy: the wartime art of Captain Julian Cory-Wright RA charts his journey from the unspoilt coast of north-west Norfolk where he spent much of his youth to the more hostile shoreline of northern France. His remarkable portfolio of paintings, drawings and prints depicts soldiers training and at rest, as well as scenes on board the liberty ship Fort Biloxi bound for Normandy.
Letters to his parents and wife paint a moving picture of a young man stoically enduring the long years of military training while longing for action. Sadly, Julian survived for just a few days following the landing in Normandy, and is buried in the British Military Cemetery at Tilly-sur-Seulles.
The tin trunk containing his personal possessions was returned to his family towards the end of 1944. It contained, among other things, his paint box and brushes, and the books of sketches he made before and during that fateful voyage to Normandy. The dumper truck he drew being loaded on board the Fort Biloxi at Tilbury may never have made it on to the beaches of Normandy (it was washed overboard during violent storms), but his sketch books got there and back to Brancaster.
From Norfolk to Normandy not only provides a long-awaited showcase for a talent lost to war, but shares for the first time this personal testimony with a wider audience.
This hardback volume reproduces many of Julian’s watercolours along with text and photographs to tell his story.
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