‘ELVA PAINTED THE CO V ERI UNSUNG HEROES OF THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN’
On a spring day in 1985 a young Rebecca Blacker Jones entered the Aladdin’s cave that was her great aunt Elva’s home. The eerie Victorian house in Sutton, South London, had been uninhabited for months. Moth-ridden curtains drifted on the breeze, and pigeons lived in one of the bedrooms.
Rebecca and her sister Pip found a glass room that was a chaos of weeds, dust and cobwebs. It was also filled with pots of paint, brushes and pencils, all left to hand, as if their owner had just stepped out of the room.
Elva Blacker was a renowned artist whose career spanned many decades. She created her most important work during wartime, when she painted behind-the-scenes images of Royal Air Force servicemen and women. She captured a unique time in British history, in all of its intensity.
