Auxiliary Fire Service Girl, City Fire Station 1940

Although best known for her earlier portraits of screen and theatre actresses, the French-Scottish artist Ethel Léontine Gabain (1883-1950) produced several works documenting British women in their civilian volunteer roles during the Second World War (1939-1945). Women were recruited to fill the vacancies left when thousands of male workers enlisted as soldiers, and were responsible for regulating the home front in roles such as engineers, wardens, factory workers, land workers, and drivers. As President of the Society of Women Artists, Gabain was commissioned by the official War Artists’ Advisory Committee to immortalise the invaluable contributions made by these working women. In this particular oil painting, a lone young woman dressed in a navy-blue uniform is captured in a moment of reflection. Her satchel is slung over her shoulder, alongside a helmet emblazoned with the initials of the National Fire Service. The wartime Auxiliary Fire Service depended on part-time female volunteers to perform a variety of pivotal tasks, both manual and administrative. Women were recruited to the Fire Service across every county of the United Kingdom, and were vital to ensuring public safety by reducing the impact of bombings. Gabain’s realist depiction of the Fire Service woman was produced during her wartime travels across the United Kingdom. Her paintings and lithographs recorded the changing role of women in the 1940s as they began to enter occupations traditionally associated with men. Editor: Lucy Jude Grantham