Museum Displays Mark WWII Battle of Britain

Commemorations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in World War II opened this week with a display of paintings, drawings and sculpture at the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon.

Most members of the Guild of Aviation Artists who produced the works at the north London museum’s request were not born when the RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires met the German Luftwaffe over southern England in the summer of 1940.

The exhibits depict the aircraft and people of the battle on both sides and cost from $75 for a pencil drawing of a pilot to $25,000 for a large oil of three Spitfires by Frank Wootton, a leading aviation artist during the war.

The museum is the largest in Europe devoted to aviation.