Unidentified Aircraft, Unidentified Surrealist
By Madina Burkhanova
Depending on who you are, the terms war and surreal are either strikingly different or almost codependent. The second World War brought about the advent of various global artistic movements, but one deeply hidden and individual campaign was that of Edward Baird, the overlooked Montrosian artist. Imbued with a passion for wartime proletariat advocacy and a love for Scotland, Baird spent his lifetime fighting against his own self-inflicted challenges to make a name for himself.
Montrose is yet another picturesque, coastal Scottish town - the Angus bridge between Fife and Aberdeenshire. All roads in Baird’s pieces lead to Montrose in one way or another, although perhaps the town is not his artistic base purely out of love. From an external perspective, it may seem that Baird was actively working against his own success and renown. In his lifetime, he produced only forty paintings, being known for his painstaking, almost frustrating perfectionism. His pace applied to not only the act of art-making, but also to his research process. Baird was hesitant to draw or paint any subject without profound prior knowledge; perhaps this is why he so consistently reverted back to Montrose.
Baird was officially bestowed the label of War Artist in 1942, largely because of his series of portraits dedicated to documenting the vision of ordinary working people. The industrial depression of the 1930s in particular impacted Baird’s artistic output; below is the piece Distressed Area.
Edward Baird, Distressed Area, 1936. Watercolour, 22.24 x 17.5 cm.
Distressed Area almost seems Dali-esque, a prime example of how Baird emulated surrealist constructs even in his pieces that weren’t explicitly labelled as such. The viewer is left with the feeling that they must be missing a visual element that reveals the true intention of the painting. In Baird’s rather small but rich oeuvre, he played this card multiple times: in a portrait of his wife Ann Fairweather, the word Ingres is hidden in the background, upside down. Perhaps this was a blunt acknowledgement of the type of paper the drawing was on, or a nod to the neoclassical icon Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
In parallel, Distressed Area is exemplary of Baird’s signature meticulous and implicit political commentary. It is a dedication to the working class of Scotland, its title being a nod to the book That Distressed Area by Scottish author and nationalist George Malcolm Thomson. The book critiques governmental policies during Scotland’s depression era.
On paper, Baird was academically gifted, even ambitious. He travelled whenever financially possible and graduated top of his class at the Glasgow School of Art. But still, he continuously regressed into the familiar. For his friend’s wedding, he produced a surrealist rendering of The Birth of Venus - except, instead of personalising the nude model to adhere to the groom’s personal life, he chose to use his own partner’s figure. Aside from this slightly uncomfortable detail, Baird’s The Birth of Venus features an uncanny mix of organicism and industrial elements (such as a car mirror). This surrealist combination is almost unsettling in its mystery.
Edward Baird, The Birth of Venus, 1934. Oil on canvas, 51 x 69 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
The pinnacle of Baird’s repertoire: Unidentified Aircraft (over Montrose). Like many of his works, the painting references Montrose’s wartime struggles. Shown from a distance, the town is small, vulnerable. The piece is lit up by a “bomber’s moon,” compounding its eeriness. The three figures in the foreground were long thought to be three separate individuals, but are now known to be three views of the same man. Peter Machir was a subject of fascination to Baird - in particular, he thought Machir’s hands were beautiful, hence the presence of a slightly disembodied hand in the left-bottom of the painting. The multi-faceted view of Machir in the piece could symbolise the anxiety and suspense of constant imminent danger in the 1940s, but also the repetition of the same search for that “unidentified aircraft” during the war. Through Unidentified Aircraft, Baird brings to light that harmony of war and surrealism.
Edward Baird, Unidentified Aircraft, 1942. Oil on canvas, 71.1 x 91.4 cm, Glasgow Museums.
It is not for naught that we’re told perfectionism is best applied in moderation. In the case of Edward Baird, his exhaustive detail-orientation resulted in procrastination and self-destruction. Still, his love for Scotland and his town of Montrose transcend his quantitative output. Many of us can only hope to be so devoted and loving - but also, freer from our own constraints.
Works Cited
Art UK. “Unidentified Aircraft (over Montrose).“ Public Catalogue Foundation.
Blackwood, Jonathan. Local Defense Volunteer: the Painting and Criticism of Edward Baird 1939-1945. United Kingdom: University of Bristol, 2003.
The Newsroom. “Baird to the Bone.“ The Scotsman, 8th May 2004.