Finish Gallery

Harold Abrahams wins 100m - 1924 Olympics

Harold Maurice Abrahams, CBE, (18991978) - a British athlete of Jewish origin. He was champion in the 100 metres sprint at the 1924 Olympics in Paris (July 7th), France (a feat made legendary in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire'). His time was 10.6 seconds. Jackson Scholz (second from right) was second and Arthur Porritt (far left) was third. The other named athlete was the World Record holder at the time, Charles Paddock. The other two competitors featured were fourth placed Chester Bowman (second left) and sixth placed Loren Murchison (third from right).
1924

© Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 - https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10513644

The Three Dancers

The Three Dancers (1945). Luke, John 1906-1975. The Three Dancers is a prime example of Luke?s highly stylised and precise technique. The flowing lines of the dancers? arms, the bending boughs of the bush and the wavy undulations of the landscape, create the rhythm of the dance in a powerfully immediate way. The subtle finish and intense colour derives from the use of tempera, a medium Luke began experimenting with in 1933 and which fascinated him. By the 1940s, Luke had become virtually obsessed with the craftsmanship involved in creating works like The Three Dancers. Indeed, such was his preoccupation with the making of the picture that he produced lengthy notes on its technical construction. Luke spent almost his entire career living and working in Belfast with the exception of a period in County Armagh during the war years. This picture, painted whilst he was living there, is the first of a number of almost visionary compositions produced in the mid-1940s possibly inspired by the closing stages of the war. Date: 1945

© National Museums NI / MARY EVANS

Fought to a Finish

Fought to a Finish: A Remarkable Exploit on a Blazing Plane An illustration by Joseph Simpson of an incident described by Mr Boyd Cable (newspaper correspondent Ernest Andrew Ewart). Though not named in the ILN caption, this seems to be the incident for which eighteen year old Canadian pilot Alan McLeod received the Victoria Cross. On 27 March 1918 the petrol tank of his Armstrong Whitworth F.K.8 was struck during a dogfight. With the aeroplane in flames and both McLeod and his observer Albert Hammond wounded, the pilot, standing on the wing to avoid the flames steered the plane to the ground, keeping it in such a position (side slipping) that the flames were blown away from the two men. Landing in no mans land between the opposing trenches, the two were rescued by British infantry. Date: 1918

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans