1. Bernard Hailstone was an English painter, best known for his Second World War portraits of transport and civil defence workers painted in Britain, his portraits of members of the Armed Forces painted overseas and his post-war portraits of the royal family, musicians, stage and film actors.
Bernard Hailstone's elder brother, Harold, was an established magazine illustrator and cartoonist.
Bernard Hailstone belongs to the group of early 20th-century artists whose best-known work was done during the Second World War.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Bernard Hailstone felt the need to incorporate his artistic contribution to the war effort with more physical work.
Bernard Hailstone therefore joined the Auxiliary Fire Service, AFS, and witnessed at first hand the destruction caused by bombing during the Blitz.
Bernard Hailstone recorded some of these scenes in his paintings.
Bernard Hailstone supplemented these works with portraits of his colleagues in the fire services and other war workers.
In June 1945, Bernard Hailstone was transferred to the Ministry of Information to record the work of the South East Asia Command during the Burma Campaign.
Bernard Hailstone's work included portraits of Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Sir John Barbirolli and Paul Mellon.
The Mellon portrait led to several commissions in America which provided the funds to save the tower and some ancillary buildings of Hadlow Castle, where Bernard Hailstone had lived from 1951, from demolition.