Alfred Daniels: The Boat Race, 2010

Alfred Daniels (1924–2015), dubbed the ‘Lowry of the East End’, began his career at the age of fourteen, working in commercial art studios, initially in Chancery Lane. He worked on lettering, layouts, paste-ups and photographic retouching. During the war he attended life classes at Woolwich Polytechnic, got a scholarship to art school, and after the war studied mural design at the Royal College of Art and travelled round Italy, where he was greatly influenced by the paintings of the Italian primitives. Daniels created calendars for Oxford University Press and the Post Office, as well as a set of murals for Hammersmith Town Hall in 1954.

Daniels, known as Danny, painted many pictures of the Boat Race, and we have chosen one that is probably near the Chiswick end of the race. For further information about the Boat Race itself, see our image for 1929: The Boat Race.

Acknowledgements: With thanks to the estate of Alfred Daniels and Orwell Press Art Publishing.