Filey, a day at the beach

Ellis Silas was an illustrator and poster designer who worked for British Rail. This work is a prototype for a British Railway poster advertising Filey in Yorkshire dated c. 1950. Silas studied with Sickert and joined the Australian Imperial Forces in 1914. He fought at the battle of Gallipoli with the 16th Batallion, suffered from shell shock and eventually returned to live in Australia in 1921, where he worked as a commercial artist, designing posters and illustrating books. His series of paintings documenting the Battle of Gallipoli were received with great interest as eye-witness accounts of the campaign.