Hotspur🏳️🌈🇺🇦"Regimental Band," Darsie Japp, 1918.
Japp (1883-1973) was a British artist and soldier; this is his best-known work.
He attended Oxford, worked in his father's shipping company, and took night classes in art. He was a good friend of Stanley Spencer (an artist I will never feature because I cannot stand him or his art, sorry, I have my limits) and took up landscapes and figure paintings. He later exhibited with the New British Art Club.
He joined the British Army in WWI and became major in the Royal Field Artillery. He and his friend Spencer (also serving) had been tapped to work on a British national hall of remembrance that was stillborn. After the war, Japp gave up art and bred race horses.
This was purportedly to be a design for a poster, but we're not sure for what. It's an interesting image, to be sure. Is the sky a circus tent, or is it being lit by explosions?
From the Imperial War Museum, London.
