In February 1940, Eric Ravilious (1903–42), became, with Paul Nash, one of the first artists to be appointed by the WAAC. He was assigned to the Admiralty and given the rank of Captain. His first assignments took him to the Royal Naval Barracks in Chatham, Sheerness, Grimsby and Scapa Flow, sailing to the Arctic Circle on HMS ‘Highlander’. Ravilious moved on to Portsmouth, and, in August 1940, to HMS ‘Dolphin’, the Royal Navy shore base at Gosport. He spent time on board L-class submarines (which, largely decommissioned by the time of the Second World War, were used for training), drawing interiors of these extraordinary environments. From this experience, came the ‘Submarines' series, a group of lithographic prints produced in 1941, and perhaps his most coherent group of wartime works. The preparatory sketches, acquired by the WAAC, are in the National Maritime Museum.
In 1942, Ravilious was reassigned to the RAF. That summer, he went to Iceland, to never return: his aircraft was lost during a rescue operation on 2 September. Ravilious was the first of three official war artists killed on active duty during the Second World War.
This print, after the preparatory drawing PAJ0740, shows the submariners at rest in their ward room. Card-playing was an essential pastime in a submariner’s life, especially during long journeys. The L27 submarine carried 38 officers and men, working and living in a narrow space crammed with equipment. Ravilious has uncluttered the scene to make it more legible. The men, featureless silhouettes, add to the eerie feel of the composition. There is a duplicate of this print in the NMM collection (object ID PAD8093).