In March 1944 Richards became an Official War Artist with the rank of Captain and took part in the Allied Invasion of France and through Holland to Germany, following the advance in a jeep that resembled a mobile studio. Typhoon Orchard was painted in the autumn of that year and described in his notes ‘France. The beginning of the advance. Typhoon Orchard. The Trun-Chambois Gap: in the midst of the wreckage of German transport and German dead. This quiet orchard, filled with dead horses of the German horse drawn Division caught in the Gap.’

Falaise Gap in Normandy was attacked by rocket-firing Typhoon aircraft to halt the German retreat.

On the night of March 5th 1945, Richards told his colleagues he was going off to paint what was for him ‘the greatest picture of the war’ – a night attack by the Allied troops on the retreating Germany divisions near the river Maas. Misunderstanding directions from the engineers in a charge of a minefield, Richards turned off the road and into the fringes of the field, and was killed.

This work was presented to the Collection by the War Artists' Advisory Committee.

Further reading:
The Rose of Death, Imperial War Museum, London, 1978