Ashley George Old
Ashley George Old (born 1913, d. 2001) was an artist best known for documenting the lives of prisoners of war forced to construct the Thailand-Burma Railway.
Ashley George Old
1913
2001 (aged 87–88)
British
Painting
The Major Arthur Moon Collection
During World War II he was stationed in Singapore, and when it fell to the Japanese in February 1942, he was taken prisoner and sent to work on the aforementioned Death Railway.
Training and early career[edit]
Old trained at Northampton College of Art, where he was taught anatomy by Lewis Duckett MC, a World War I ambulanceman. Subsequently he worked for the famous commercial art firm Carlton Artists.[1] He later took further training at the Camberwell School of Art.[2]
Portrait of POW "Dusty" Rhodes. A three-minute sketch by Old painted in Thailand in 1944
Portrait of Ernest Warwick by Ashley George Old
A dark view of the woods at Cupid's Green
The woods at Cupid's Green transformed into a jungle
Until his death in 2001 the artist remained both deeply traumatised and enchanted by his experiences in the jungle while a POW. These conflicting emotions are evident in many of his later works; both horror and beauty are shown in the woodlands scenes below. These were painted at Cupid's Green, near Hemel Hempstead, in 1959. The artist spent many months there observing and recording the area's change from an old market town to one of the post-war 'New Towns'.
Media related to Ashley George Old at Wikimedia Commons