Ruby Loftus: Picture of the Year

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“I was going to send [my fiancé] a photograph of myself before this happened but I think he’s seen enough of me in the papers now.”

— Ruby Loftus, South Wales Argus, April 1943

Superintendent Galbraith’s chauffered Armstrong-Siddeley, 1943

The dynamic wartime subject of Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-Ring struck an optimistic chord with the public. By 1943, a war-weary Britain needed good news; the painting provided it.

The image’s popularity was immediate and has endured for nearly 80 years. Not surprising, therefore, that the work was voted Picture of the Year by visitors to the 1943 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

Director General of the Royal Ordnance Factories Sir Charles McLaren said that the way the machine was painted was “so technically perfect that no engineer could find fault with it.”

“The picture of Ruby was extremely popular in industrial circles and when Ferranti said they would like a colour replica for their Edinburgh works, the War Artists’ Advisory Committee decided to make a poster version of the painting.”
- Caroline Fox, Dame Laura Knight, 1988

A year after the painting of Loftus was unveiled at the Royal Academy in London, the War Artists Advisory Committee at the National Gallery sent twenty-five paintings to Newport to be exhibited at the Museum and Art Gallery. The exhibition was on display from 28th March until 22nd April 1944.

Newport Museum & Art Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 1944

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the war, Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-Ring was returned on loan to Newport Museum & Art Gallery from the Imperial War Museum in London for a special exhibition from July-December 2006.

Newport Mayor Councillor Miqdad Al-Nuaimi and Jessica Morden MP unveiled the painting to an audience of former ROF Factory veterans. The event was covered extensively by local media.

The painting hangs in the permanent collection of the Imperial War Museum London.