Stan Stokes.
Full Collection of German Aviation art Prints by Aviation artist Stan
Stokes
Stan
Stokes is a California native with more than 37 years as a full time
professional artist, who developed a passion for vintage cars, trains and
airplanes at an early age. Model building and RC planes filled the many hours of
the young enthusiasts free time. However, unlike most other young aviation
enthusiasts Stokes also displayed a great gift for artistic talent. After
studying art in College, Stan decided to pursue a career as a professional
artist. Stokes initially focused his great talents on depicting uniquely
realistic landscapes of the western desert and mountain scenes. More than thirty
years ago a good friend suggested that Stan combine his passion for aviation
history and flying with his artistic talents, and render an aircraft or two. The
rest is history. Stan has won many prestigious awards including the
Benedictine Art Award in 1975 and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museums
Golden Age of Flight award in 1985. In May of 2000, Stan was honored with the
National Museum of Naval Aviations R. G. Smith Award for Excellence in Naval
Aviation Art. Commissioned by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi
Valley, California, Stans 12 x 120 foot mural of the History of the Flying White
House is on permanent display in the Air Force One Pavilion. In addition Stans
painting of the USS Ronald Reagan is hanging in the Legacy Room of the library.
In 2005 Stan also completed a painting of our nations next aircraft carrier, the
USS George H. W. Bush, which is on permanent display at the George H. W. Bush
Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. Stan has also completed several
impressive murals for the Palm Springs Air Museum including: The Tuskegee Airmen
at 12 x 60 feet and contains 51 portraits of the original Tuskegee Airmen.
Dauntless at Midway at 12 x 34 feet and Corsair on Approach at 19 x 55 feet.
Stans work also hangs in the Air Force art collection, the Pentagon, San Diego
Aerospace Museum, and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in
Washington DC. Stan has had the pleasure of meeting and working with many of his
boyhood aviation heroes, including the late General Jimmy Doolittle, the late
Pappy Boyington, Chuck Yeager, and many many others. A true aviation history
buff, Stan often spends more time pouring over research materials for
his paintings to assure their accuracy to the smallest detail than he
does behind the canvas. Noted for his incredible detail and strikingly realistic
illustration, Stans canvases have a life-like three-dimensional effect that
often leaves viewers spellbound. Today his work encompasses not only aviation
and space but also portraits, landscapes, ships, classic cars and his new
collection of cat-related fine art paintings. Stan particularly enjoys the tough
assignment. During his 37 years as a professional artist, he has been asked to
produce literally hundreds of paintings documenting historical events, people
and places. Although Stan has logged many hours flying his own airplanes, in
recent years pleasure flying has had to take a backseat to the artistic demands
of his backlog. Stan was commissioned to paint more than twenty original
paintings for an aviation museum being in the Philippines. Since the mid-1980s
NASA has also tapped Stans talents from time to time and he has completed more
than fifteen paintings ranging from the space shuttles to the SR 71 Blackbird.
Stan has also painted numerous works for the cutting edge genius in aviation and
space design, Burt Rutan.
Yellow 14 by Stan Stokes.
Hans-Joachim Marseille – Germanys Eagle of the Desert, had a less than auspicious start as a fighter pilot. Having completed his training in the autumn of 1940 he participated in the Battle of Britain while based in western France. Although Marseille was credited with downing eight RAF aircraft, he had a reputation for losing lots of aircraft. In fact he had bailed out of six Bf-109s and during his units transfer to North Africa, the young ace lost another 109. The Bf-109 was one of the most successful fighters of WW II, and was produced in large quantities for a very long production run. Marseilles debonair manner harkened back to the earlier era of WW I when knights of the sky faced death every day on their canvas-covered wings. He was very aggressive, and very often would dive his aircraft into enemy formations without regard for the consequences. Marseilless commanding officer was Capt. Eduard Neumann, and he deserves credit for the maturation of the young pilot. He convinced Mars.........
Heinz Bar joined JG 51 in 1939 as a non-officer pilot. By August of 1940 he had become the highest scoring non-officer pilot in the Luftwaffe. Although shot down once during the Battle of Britain, Bar survived, and was later transferred to the Eastern Front. He received his commission and by the end of 1941 had chalked up 91 victories. By mid-1942, with 113 victories, he was promoted to Hauptman and made Group Commander of I/JG 77. Flying out of Sicily he participated in the siege of Malta, and later was shifted to North Africa where he obtained another 61 victories. With his health suffering, Heinz was reassigned to Germany, where he flew interception missions against the steady onslaught of Eighth Air Force bombers. With his victory total at 202, Bar was put in command of JG 3 and later III/EJG2, a unit equipped with the Me-262 jet fighter. He obtained 16 victories in March and April of 1945 while piloting the 262, making him the top jet ace of WW II. His record for victories in a j.........
The grandfather of todays cruise missiles, the Mistel was the piggyback aircraft of the Luftwaffe during WW II. This combination aircraft arose out of research conducted to find a better means for towing gliders into combat. About two hundred of these combinations were ultimately built. The British had experimented with a piggyback combination of a commercial transport on the back of a flying boat in the late 1930s. The Mistel project in Germany had its share of skeptics. As the program evolved and Germanys strategic position in the War eroded, the Mistel project became focused on using unmanned obsolete Ju-88 bombers loaded to the gills with explosives as a very large guided bomb. The top aircraft in the combination, either a Bf-109 or Fw-190, would be piloted into the proximity of the target. A rudimentary guidance system would then be locked on the target, and the unmanned Ju-88 would fly itself into the target. Some Mistel combinations utilized normal looking Ju-88s, whereas other.........
By the Spring of 1917 the Western Front had been stalemated for more than two years with the armies of Germany and the Allies deadlocked in static trench warfare. At sea, the fleets of both Germany and Great Britain were also at a strategic impasse following the inconclusive Battle of Jutland in 1916. The unrestricted U-Boat campaign in the Atlantic had resulted in Americas entry into the War, and Germany turned to its fledgling air force to help break the deadlock. Night raids by Zeppelins in 1915 and 1916 had proven ineffectual as the great airships had proven vulnerable to the unpredictable weather and to increasingly effective defenses. A new strategic weapon would therefore be utilized - the heavy bomber. With a fleet of such airoplanes, the very heart of London could be attacked. In March of 1917 a new unit was formed in Flanders, soon to be known as the England Geschwader. Lead by Hauptman Ernst Brandenburg, Kaghol 3 (the units official designation,) was equipped with the Gotha.........
There were tens of thousands of aerial combat encounters during World War II. One of the most unusual was a dogfight that took place between Captain Arthur C. Fiedler, Jr. and an unidentified German Bf-109 pilot on June 28, 1944. Fiedler was an Illinois native who received his wings in July 1943. He was assigned as a flight instructor in Dover, Delaware, but in May 1944 he was assigned to the 317th Fighter Squadron of the 325th Fighter Group. Flying P-51B Mustangs the 317th was based in Lesina, Italy. Fiedler named his Mustang after his wife Helen. On a combat mission on June 24th Fiedler claimed a probable. Four days later the eventual ace was flying near Polesti, Rumania when a Bf-109 crossed directly in front of his aircraft. Slamming his P-51 into a near vertical bank he trailed the 109 for a few seconds attaining several hits before his guns jammed. As Fiedler rolled out of his bank he found himself flying in formation parallel to the 109, and headed towards Russia. Fiedler was n.........
Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker was born in the Dutch East Indies in 1890. When his father retired the Fokker family returned to Holland, where Anthony attended school. He dropped out of college, and being deemed unfit for military service, worked at a number of odd jobs. Fokkers father persuaded his son to attend an automobile mechanics school in Germany, but Anthony was disappointed and convinced his father to enroll him in a school near Mainz which offered courses in aircraft construction and flying. This endeavor was not particularly successful, and Anthony decided to build his own flying machine. He found a partner in Oberlieutenant Von Daum, a fifty-year-old officer in the German military. The aircraft was completed in 1910, and Fokker flew it successfully on a number of flights. Von Daum, unfortunately, destroyed the machine on his first attempt at flying it. The two partners then teamed with a boat-builder to construct a second aircraft. In early 1912 Anthony had organized Fokke.........
Arguably the best brother team of two fighter aces was Manfred and Lothar von Richtofen, with 120 WW I aerial victories between them. Manfred, who became known as The Red Baron, was the top ace of WW I and his reputation is still alive and well today thanks to movies and books. The Richtofen family was minor nobility, and Manfred painted the aircraft he flew in the squadron he commanded bright red – hence the name Red Baron. Manfred was born in Poland in 1892, and was sent to military school at age eleven. When WW I commenced Manfred, commissioned as a lieutenant, initially served in the cavalry. He became enthralled with aircraft while watching planes perform aerial reconnaissance missions. In 1915 he attended flying school, and was first assigned as an observer to a bombing squadron. Inspired by the exploits of the famous ace Oswald Boelcke Manfred put in for pilot training. He passed the pilots test on his third try. He was fortunate to fly with Boelcke in Jasta 2, a unit of promis.........
Germany, concerned over the full brunt of Americas entry into the War, decided in 1918 to launch one last all-out offensive. Germanys air forces were to play an important role in this offensive, but production of new aircraft had lagged behind expectations. With insufficient numbers of aircraft, German military leaders had to hope for technically superior machines to offset their disadvantages in numbers. In early 1918 top aces were brought back from the front to test competing designs. The overall favorite was a Fokker design which would ultimately reach the front as the D.VII. The aircraft was ordered into production immediately. The Germans organized a couple more fighter groups which could be rapidly deployed in those area where they could do the most good. The German offensive, which is generally referred to as the Kaisers Battle, began in the Spring and was focused on the area north of the Somme. British forces were initially overwhelmed by the German offensive. German airpower .........
Born in Prussia to wealthy aristocratic parents, Manfred Freherr von Richtofen, The Red Baron, was to become the top ace of World War I, with 80 confirmed kills, and probably another 40-50 which took place over enemy lines and could not be confirmed. Richtofen was originally a cavalry officer, but with great persistence he was transferred to the air arm. After a brief period on the eastern front Richtofen was transferred to the western front in August 1915. His first confirmed victory was recorded in September 1916 and by November he recorded eleven kills, including Major Lance Hawker, the top British fighter pilot. With his keen reflexes and eyesight he quickly ascended, and by June 1917 Richtofen took control of a unit near Coutrai. This unit became known as Richtofens Circus. By July the ringmaster had his fifty-seventh victim. Despite his successes Richtofen shunned publicity and became increasingly withdrawn. Richtofen was wounded in combat and spent three weeks in the hospital r.........
Print size 16 inches x 11.5 inches (41cm x 30cm) Supplied with signed and numbered certificate of authenticity.
Artist : Stan Stokes
£10 Off!
Now : £30.00
Hurricane on my Tail by Stan Stokes.
With Europe occupied by Nazi forces, Great Britain was the last obstacle in Hitlers plan to rule Europe. Hitlers invasion plan called for his Luftwaffe to gain control of the air over Britain in the first few weeks of attack, which would be followed by pulverizing bombing attacks on the British coastline, and finally by a blitzkrieg style invasion spearheaded by Panzer Divisions supported by fighters and dive bombers. The Germans had assembled over 100 well-equipped divisions by the Summer of 1940 for its invasion of Britain, and on August 8 the Luftwaffe attacks commenced. The Germans had underestimated the capability of the British air defense and both the will and skill of its pilots. In the first ten days of German attacks RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires shot down 697 German aircraft, while losing only 153 aircraft and 93 flight personnel of their own. By months end the German strategists shifted to all out attacks on British airfields, aircraft plants, and munitions factories. Effec.........
On July 2, 1900 Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin piloted his first rigid-framed, lighter-than-air ship over Lake Constance in Germany. Seventeen years later, on June 16, 1917, Zepellins latest creation, the L-48, was readied at Nordholz, Germany for its first combat mission. The huge L-48 was one of the newest and most technically advanced German airships. Powered by five 250 HP Maybach engines, the great airship could carry 6,000 pounds in bombs, and was manned by a crew of nineteen. For this maiden mission the commodore of the North Sea Airship Division, Victor Schutze, would be joining the L-48s skipper Kapitain-lieutenant Franz George Eichler. Early in the afternoon the L-48 commenced its mission along with several other airships from the Nordholz base. The great Zeppelin would cruise at 60 MPH at 5,000 to 10,000 feet and would ascend to approximately 20,000 feet when approaching its target. This altitude would provide an effective defense against both anti-aircraft or British fighter.........
Commissioned on August 24, 1940, the German battleship Bismarck was the epitome of naval power. The great ship was 823 feet in length, had a beam of 118 feet, and a displacement of 50,000 tons. After nine months of sea trials the Bismarck embarked on its first mission accompanied by the cruiser Prinz Eugen on May 19, 1941. The Bismarcks mission was to destroy and disrupt convoys carrying war relief supplies to Britain from North America. On May 20th the Bismarck was spotted and reported to British intelligence as it passed through the narrow straits between Denmark and Sweden. The British presumed correctly that the Bismarck was headed for the North Atlantic, but by which route? Dividing its naval forces in an attempt to intercept the mighty German battleship, four ships were sent to patrol the Denmark strait, including the newly commissioned battleship Prince of Wales, and the H.M.S. Hood, a heavily armed battle cruiser, pride of the British fleet. On may 23rd the Bismarck was spotte.........
