Can anyone identify the collection these are from?

[TheVoidDragon]

Short version: Page numbers and format of these suggest they're taken out of something, so looking for the specific collection (Possibly a book?) containing all this art together (seems to be 2 different things as the Short Stirling has a different format to the others), each piece already has the art name and artist on them!

 

Long version:

 

Last year while at a Museum Air Show event (UK) I bought a few pieces of art. They're just various flight-related artwork from a variety of different artists, on paper (better quality than standard a4?), nothing fancy but they were £1 each and I thought they would look good framed. I realized afterwards that every piece has a number at the bottom on both sides (45/46, 197/198, 91/92 etc) with the other side being the next number like page numbers. There were 2 different styles of page, one with a line border around the art with the art's name at the bottom of the page and the back of it having text talking about what's on the front artwork. The other format, like the top right one in the first photo, has art on both sides (a different piece).

 

Tried searching for some of the art  using the names, and I've been able to find quite a few of them, but what really seems odd to me is that I found a lot of these 'prints' or whatever they actually are, being sold at absurd prices on Ebay and such - they have the exact same page style as ones I bought or saw there, just with a frame added. They seem to be the same and not higher quality or something like that.

 

Here's photos of some of what i havet:

 

 

I really can't figure out specifically why they seem to have page numbers on them and considering others selling them have the same things including name, border etc as mine, that makes me think they must come from something specific (E.g. taken out of a book to sell) or be available somewhere as a collection. There isn't really a noticeable theming either - Most of it was military themed art but there were some others like classic passenger planes too, consisting of aviation from WW1 all the way up to modern day. Some of the others I got were things like the F-117 Nighthawk and A-10 Warthog. There was helicoper art too and even things like an Ekranoplane, so all sorts of different things with no obvious consistent theming beyond aviation - but they all had the same page style.

 

One of the prints actually isn't proper a4-size, it's slightly bigger and off-cut, which also suggests it was taken out of something.

 

Does anyone have any idea where specifically these might have came from - is there an artbook or something with these?

Edited June 14, 2020 by TheVoidDragon

[Graham Boak]

I remember seeing those, probably at Cosford a couple of years back but could of course have been almost anywhere.  I came to the same conclusion, that they had been taken from one artist's book, and given that his name was missing, possibly without his knowledge.  I'm afraid I'm not very good at recognising even distinctive artist's styles: I don't think it is Michael Turner but could be Nicholas Trudgian?

[TheVoidDragon]

6 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

I remember seeing those, probably at Cosford a couple of years back but could of course have been almost anywhere.  I came to the same conclusion, that they had been taken from one artist's book, and given that his name was missing, possibly without his knowledge.  I'm afraid I'm not very good at recognising even distinctive artist's styles: I don't think it is Michael Turner but could be Nicholas Trudgian?

These actually do include the art name + artist on each page (the 2nd style doesn't though which suggests a different origin) and there's quite a lot of different artists for these pieces of art. So based on the assumption that these are page numbers from a book, it must be at least a 200 page artbook consisting of aviation art spanning the past a century, with a large amount of different artists included....and it's seemingly landscape format, too.

 

I suppose looking up the artists and trying to find a list of what they've been included in might be a way to find out!

Edited June 14, 2020 by TheVoidDragon

[Graham Boak]

Thanks.  Just to satisfy my curiosity, who are the artists for the Gamecocks and for the Me262/B-17?  Two names spring to mind.

[JohnT]

No name on the Short Stirling but it’s by Michael Turner

 

The B-17 and Me 262 is by Robert Taylor 

 

The Gaunlets are by Rodney Diggens

 

 

[TheVoidDragon]

22 hours ago, JohnT said:

No name on the Short Stirling but it’s by Michael Turner

 

The B-17 and Me 262 is by Robert Taylor 

 

The Gaunlets are by Rodney Diggens

 

 

Tried searching for Robert Taylor and Rodny Diggens together but couldn't find a collection featuring both their work together.