page_title: Ethel Léontine Gabain
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Ethel Léontine Gabain / Biography / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: Scan of book,S W Thomson, The Life and Works of Ethel Gabain,front cover
context_page_description: Ethel Léontine Gabain was a French-English artist. Gabain was a renowned painter and lithographer and among the founding members of the Senefelder Club. She was the wife of the print maker John Copley and the mother of actor Peter Copley, and was also known by her married name of Ethel Copley. While she was known for her oil portraits of actresses, Gabain was one of the few artists of her time able to live on the sale of her lithographs. She also did etchings, dry-points, as well as some posters.
context_section_description: In April 1940, Gabain was commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, to produce four lithographs of Women's Voluntary Services members and four on the subject of children being evacuated from London and other cities. Gabain actually offered WAAC thirteen lithographs for this commission but they only accepted the original eight commissioned. WAAC published these as two sets of lithographs, Children in Wartime with five images and Women's Work in the War other than the Services, which had six images. In total WAAC acquired 38 works by Gabain during the War. For these commissions Gabain, although often in poor health, travelled all over Britain. She went to the Scottish Highlands to record the work of women lumberjacks, known as "lumberjills", at a Women's Land Army camp in Banffshire and to Devon to depict children evacuated there from London. Throughout the War, Gabain recorded women working in what, in peacetime, had been traditionally male crafts and trades. As well as women salvage workers, factory workers, ARP wardens and air raid workers, Gabain produced a portrait of Captain Pauline Gower of the Air Transport Auxiliary. In 1945, she produced a series of portraits that included Barbara Ward and Caroline Haslett.
  Gabain's  WAAC commissions allowed her to explore her interest in the innovative medical techniques which were being developed during the war. In 1944, as well as depicting Sir Alexander Fleming working in the laboratory where he had discovered penicillin, Gabain also recorded, in A Child Bomb-Victim Receiving Penicillin Treatment, a young girl being treated with the drug. She recorded pioneering treatments of burns victims, including the introduction of a new continuous irrigation method.
  Several industrial firms commissioned works from Gabain. Williams and Williams, Reliance Works in Chester commissioned Gabain to produce a number of lithographs and oils. One oil shows Women Workers in the Canteen at Williams and Williams. These were brought about by Lawrence Haward, the curator of The City Art Gallery, now the Manchester Art Gallery. Gabain received two commissions from Ferranti Hollinwood – Working on the Cathode Ray Tubes and A Giro Compass; one from Richard Haworth & Co. Ltd. in Salford – The Weaver; and one from the British Cotton Industry Research Association – The Shirley Institute of Cotton Research.
caption: Women Workers in the Canteen, - The Grosvenor Art Gallery, Chester
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