William
Roberts, the son of a carpenter, was born in London
in 1895. He studied at the Slade School
(1910-13) and became a close friend of Percy
Wyndham Lewis and worked with
him on Blast and signed the Vorticist
Manifesto.
In 1916 Roberts enlisted in the Royal Artillery as a gunner. The following
year he was recruited as an official war artist. Paintings produced
during the war included The First German
Gas Attack, Burying the Dead,
A Group of British Generals and
A Shell Dump.
After the war he taught at the Central School
of Art. Roberts also worked as an official war artist in the
Second World War. William
Roberts died in 1980.
William Roberts, The First German Gas Attack (1918)
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