Vincent and Alice Massey

Vincent Massey was the Canadian High Commissioner to Britain during WW2, and later became the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada. He was also an art collector, and took a close interest in the activities of the both the Canadian and British war artists.

Richard's set of Dunkirk pictures painted in 1940 were done speculatively before he was taken on as an official war artist, so he had to try to sell them through the Redfern Gallery. Massey bought the biggest of them, Dunkirk Beaches, May 1940, at the 1941 exhibition, along with Staithes, Yorkshire, both of which he gifted to the National Gallery of Canada.