Carel Weight RA, The Silence

The Silence, 1965

Carel Weight RA (1908 - 1997)

RA Collection: Art

Set in his garden in Wandsworth, Weight’s Diploma Work depicts three people observing the two minutes silence on Remembrance Sunday. The artist explained that he always found this silence eerie, when everything went quiet except sounds like a dog barking. Even the tortoise in the flowerbed is still.

During the Second World War, Weight was an official war artist in Italy. In this painting, he wished to convey his belief that although people come together in rituals, their experience is essentially solitary. To emphasise this, the three figures never met and were painted separately.

Weight trained at Hammersmith School of Art and Goldsmiths’ College. Following his time as an official war artist during the Second World War, he subsequently taught at the Royal College of Art becoming Professor of Painting there in 1957.

Object details

Title
The Silence
Artist/designer
Carel Weight RA (1908 - 1997)
Date
1965
Object type
Painting
Copyright owner
Medium
Oil on board
Dimensions

915 mm x 1220 mm x 25 mm

Collection
Royal Academy of Arts
Object number
03/200
Acquisition
Diploma Work given by Carel Weight RA accepted 1965
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