A museum's bid
to buy a collection of material by 20th Century designer Rex Whistler has been
awarded £350,000.
More than 1,000 items such as drawings, diaries and
designs are in a personal archive The Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
hopes to acquire.
The grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund
means the museum needs to raise a further £10,000.
Some 75 personal items of the Kent-born designer are
currently on temporary
display at the museum.
Between the wars Whistler had risen to prominence
with a collection of work that included commercial designs for Wedgwood
Pottery, Shell Petroleum, Guinness and The London Underground.
Adrian Green, museum director, said: "Acquiring
the archive will ensure that future generations appreciate the talent of an
artist whose work epitomises the interwar era."
As a member of the Welsh Guards, Rex Whistler trained
as a tank commander on Salisbury Plain where he painted and sketched fellow
soldiers as well as painted the inside of the officers' mess to make it look
like a Bedouin tent.
He was killed in 1944, aged 39, on his first day of
action in World War II, in Normandy.
After his death, Whistler's brother Laurence
assembled the personal collection and it has remained in the family ever since.
Source: BBC
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