Alan Ernest Sorrell (11 February 1904 – 21 December 1974) was an English artist and writer best remembered for his archaeological illustrations, particularly his detailed reconstructions of Roman Britain.

[5] He created artworks of air force life in his spare time as well as completing several short-term commissions from the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, to depict airfields and runway construction.

Professor Barry Cunliffe wrote: To those of us whose interests were kindled and nurtured by the remarkable wave of popular archaeology in the 1950s the name of Alan Sorrell was as well known as those of Glyn Daniel and Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

All were experts and scholars in their own fields and all were using their powers of communication to breathe life into the unprepossessing rubble foundations and dreary potsherds that formed the raw material of archaeological research.

A strong characteristic of these paintings is, according to Sorrell, "a sense of the decay of a noble past, and this and their treatment, in its starkness and drama, links them inevitably with his archaeological drawings".

As an active member of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Sorrell worked to help preserve ancient trees and woodlands in his local area.