Pen-and-ink sketches of UK windmills. These correspond to the watercolour paintings now held by Lincolnshire Museums -– each sketch has an ‘M’ number, and the corresponding painting can be found by consulting '‘A Check List of Windmill Paintings by Karl Wood’'.
The dates written on each sketch, and used in the ‘date’ field on this catalogue are the same as those given for the paintings in the ‘check list’ -– these are the dates of Karl Wood’'s visits to the mills. Notes written on some of these sketches, however, suggest that they were produced at a later time (see for example M112). This suggests that the sketches were copied from the paintings.
It is also noteworthy that where the ‘check list’ lists two paintings of the same mill, there is only ever one sketch. When Wood painted a mill twice he used the same number, differentiating with a letter (e.g. M21a and M21b) – in all such cases only one painting has been used as the basis for a sketch, although sometimes the number written on it still includes a letter (e.g. sketch M21a). M1171 and M1171a in this collection are different –- they are two sketches based on the same painting, and are both labelled only ‘M1171’- – the '‘a'’ has been added to ID of the catalogue entry to differentiate the two.
Taking these facts into account it is possible that the sketches were intended for Karl Wood'’s book '‘The Twilight of the Mills’' which, according to the circular letter reproduced in the ‘check list’ was to have included mainly black and white images.