'Mr Stanley', 1945

Watercolour inscribed lower right: 'Old/ Rangoon 1945', by Gunner Ashley George Old (1913-2001), 1945.

An emaciated prisoner of war, Mr Stanley was sketched in September 1945, on his release from Changi Gaol in Singapore. After Mr Stanley was flown to Rangoon, he was hospitalised because he was too weak to travel further. Suffering from chronic malnutrition, he is shown lying on his back naked, apart from a white drape. Mr Stanley was a patient of Margaret Genge, a nursing sister stationed in Burma and Malaya, who became the owner of this watercolour study.

The artist, Ashley Old studied at Northampton College of Art before the war. He was serving with the Sherwood Foresters when he was taken prisoner in Singapore in 1942. He was incarcerated in Changi before being moved to Thailand. Old drew many studies of fellow prisoners, often made in exchange for tobacco.