The exhibition Focus and the book Contact were launched simultaneously on 7 December 2006. Present on the day were a number of photographers featured in the book and exhibition: Mrs Barbara Beck (Second World War Army Directorate of Public Relations photographer), John Fairley and Mike Coleridge (Vietnam War Army Directorate of Public Relations photographers), Tim Page and Denis Gibbons (Vietnam War photojournalists), David Dare Parker and Stephen Dupont (photojournalists and Australian War Memorial official photographers), and the commercial photographer Heide Smith. The book and exhibition were launched by the distinguished Australian Broadcasting Commission journalist (and former Vietnam War correspondent) Tim Bowden and the AWM’s Director, Major General Steve Gower, in front of a large crowd. Tim Page photographed the proceedings, and a selection of these images is included below.

Tim Bowden and Patricia Sabine, Head of Photographs, Film and Sound at the Australian War Memorial. Photograph by Tim Page.

Major General Steve Gower speaking at the launch of the book Contact and the exhibition Focus. Photograph by Tim Page.

Mike Coleridge, a photographer with the Australian Army’s Directorate of Public Relations during the Vietnam War, looks at Contact with the book’s author Shaune Lakin. Photograph by Tim Page.

Mike Coleridge, a photographer with the Australian Army’s Directorate of Public Relations during the Vietnam War, talks with the Perth-based photojournalist David Dare Parker. Joss Jensen, the designer of the exhibition, and Nola Anderson, Assistant Director, National Collections, Australian War Memorial, are in the background. Photograph by Tim Page.

John Fairley, a photographer with the Australian Army’s Directorate of Public Relations during the Vietnam War, stands in front of his work, some of which he was seeing for the first time since leaving Vietnam in 1970. Photograph by Tim Page.

The photojournalist Denis Gibbons signs copies of the book Contact. Photograph by Tim Page.

The Walkley award-winning photojournalist Stephen Dupont discusses one of his photographs taken in Dili, East Timor, during 1999, at the media launch for the book and the exhibition. Photograph by Tim Page.

Barbara Beck (nee Isaacson) listens to Tim Bowden at the launch of the book and exhibition. Mrs Beck was an official photographer with the Australian Army’s Directorate of Public Relations during the Second World War, when she photographed the work undertaken by Australia’s women’s services. Photograph by Tim Page.

The photojournalist David Dare Parker stands in front of his portrait of the Australian peacekeeper, Private Anthony Meixner of A Company, 1RAR, in Dili in June 2006. Photograph by Tim Page.

View of the crowd listening to Tim Bowden’s address at the launch of the book and the exhibition. Standing in front is Steve Burton, one the Australian War Memorial’s own photographers. Photograph by Tim Page.

Installation view of Focus. A viewer considers Allan Cuthbert’s photographs of Hiroshima, taken in February 1946. Photograph by Tim Page.

Installation view of Focus. Photograph by Tim Page.

Exciting things don’t happen every day in the Memorial’s Painted Surfaces Lab. For us, work on the Lambert exhibition mostly involves framing and glazing issues. The frames were originally covered in bronze leaf, but sometime later, probably in the 1960s, many of them were spray painted with nitro-cellulose based gold paint. Some of the mouldings on the frames have also been damaged or are missing. Our job is to remove the gold paint, rebuild any lost or damaged parts, retouch where necessary and glaze the painting ready for exhibition. A certain sameness can therefore creep into the work.

Every so often, however, a painting will come along that gives us a new challenge. Achi Baba from Tommy’s Trench, Helles was one of those paintings. There was great excitement when we removed it from its frame and discovered another sketch on the back. Instead of covering it up again, it was decided to frame the back of the work in such a way as to ensure that the sketch on the back remained visible. The challenge was to make sure it looked the same as the other frames for the exhibition.

Lambert frame before and during treatment

In accordance with our usual practice, the gold paint on the frame was removed. The moulding had been repaired previously but some pieces had not been replaced and others had been put in the wrong place. The latter were removed and new mouldings were made using impressions taken from undamaged frames. The repairs and damaged areas of bronze leaf were then inpainted with bronze pigments. As we did not want to change the depth of the frame our options were limited. It was decided to glaze the verso with thin perspex and to use a window mount to keep it away from the painting. Brackets were hand made from brass and the colour of the build up was continued onto the back of the frame.

Although the sketch on the back is upside down, it is still visible for future reference. At the same time the frame will sit flush against the wall for exhibition and will appear just like the other frames around it.

Sharon Alcock, Conservator, Painted Surfaces

For some more detail on the sketch that was uncovered see the post The rail journey from Gallipoli to Cairo

‘A common family name, but an uncommon family’, is how Andrew Motion the biographer of the Lambert family described them. George Lambert was born in St Petersburg of American / British parents, educated in England and spent his teenage years in the outback of Australia before becoming an Australian official war artist. His sons Constant and Maurice were equally accomplished. The elder son, Maurice (1901-1964), became a sculptor and worked mainly in wood and stone. His work was in the modernist tradition and he became the Professor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy School in London. Constant (1905-1951) was a composer and conductor, who wrote a ballet for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes company and several fine orchestral and choral works. Constant’s son Kit (1935-1981) was involved in films before taking on an unknown rock band and propelling them to stardom. This band was The Who.

The women in the Lambert family are more shadowy. Both George’s mother Annie (nee Firth) and his own wife Amy (1872-1964, nee Absell) largely managed households without their husbands. Annie had to manage four young children when her husband (George Washington Lambert – the engineer) died just two months before the birth of George Washington Thomas Lambert – the future artist. And Amy coped with George’s long absences as an official war artist or when he was completing important commissions. If you are interested in a detailed biography of the Lambert family see Andrew Motion The Lamberts: George, Constant & Kit, Chatto & Windus, London, 1986.

Janda

When the Australian Historical Mission left Gallipoli on 10 March 1919 they sailed up to Constantinople (Istanbul) before embarking on a 1500 mile rail journey that would take them across Turkey, Syria, Palestine and Egypt and into Cairo where they dispersed. The rail link through the Taurus Mountains had only been recently opened and was being used to transport Tukish and Allied troops back and forth across Asia Minor.

For their overland journey the party was assigned two long enclosed horse or cattle trucks in the train. One truck was converted to a mess room and kitchen where Lambert with the help of Sergeant G Hunter Rogers cooked the meals and slept. During the trip Lambert and Rogers frequently served up three course meals and Lambert regaled the group with impersonations of British officers and stories of his time in the Sinai with the Light Horse.

Charles Bean in Gallipoli Mission described the journey as one of “extraordinary interest and, in parts, through scenery both grand and beautiful, in country with a history going back much farther than St Paul; where Assyrians, Lydians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Arabs, Turks, Crusaders – and in these modern times Napoleon and ourselves – had marched and fought.” Along the way they passed trains crowded with Turkish troops who were demobilising.

Lambert described the rail journey (through the Taurus Mountains) as taking them through “what I think is the most spectacular country in all that part of the world that I have travelled in.” Fortunately, we have one image from this part of the trip that indicates how Lambert responded to the landscape. At one point the train made a brief halt high up in the mountains. Lambert was able to make a quick sketch of the landscape on the back of one of his Gallipoli paintings. The painting (right) was only roughly sketched in but clearly outlines the form of the place and the distant peak of the Taurus Mountains covered in snow.

As the train wound down from the mountains it passed through Adana and then Aleppo where Lambert was able to make another quick study (left). Changing trains the group passed through Jerusalem and then onto Cairo where they dispersed in early April. Throughout most of April and May Lambert was confined to a Cairo hospital with dysentery and malaria. On 31 May he was discharged from hospital and travelled to Semakh where he resumed his work as a war artist.

Janda

Before the recent Canberra screening of Lawrence of Arabia, we advised that there would be a competition and that we’d give out details first to the audience for the screenings in Canberra at Electric Shadows cinema. So, as promised, here are the details of the competition.

Review the film in 500 words or less by sending in your review as a comment on this blog and we will publish the best entry on the blog. That’s all.

Mal

Lambert was interested in the small details of the landscape just as much as the grand vistas. By painting studies of the local flowers and bushes he was able to understand more thoroughly the character, form and colours of a particular site. When he arrived on Gallipoli he made notes about the local plants: “The scrub is greenish with nice dead stuff showing grey purple here & there. I propose getting a record of the various plants & flowers.” 

 

Lambert picked these flowers from the site of a Turkish artillery battery called ‘Beachy Bill’ that had regularly shelled Anzac Cove. On 27 February 1919 he wrote that “we discovered quite a wild garden to-day and I am fixed for a flower-piece if it rains.” The following day it did rain and it was cold and bleak with intermittent showers. With the flowers to hand, Lambert was able to spend the whole day and the next painting this still life. On 1 March he commented: “Again the rain and therefore the account of the day is easy. The flower-piece is finished … The flowers are in a biscuit tin on top of a bed for a tentpole.” He was pleased with the result but felt that he should be painting up at the Nek where the tragic charge of the 3rd Light Horse had taken place in August 1915.

Janda

As part of the Evolution Film Festival, Canberra’s Electric Shadows cinema will be screening David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia on 2 and 7 December 2006. This 1962 film is largely responsible for Lawrence’s enduring image with many people today.

We will be going to the Saturday evening screening (the show starts at 7.30 pm but get there early) to hand out some flyers about our exhibition in late 2007 and we will be inviting those attending to enter another competition that concerns the film itself. We won’t tell you here what the competition is until after we’ve released the flyers, so you’ll have to come to the cinema to find out! Yes, it is located in Akuna St, Canberra and that is in Australia.

You will be able to recognise the curatorial team as we will be appearing in period dress, including ‘Emir Nigel of Arabia’, ‘A Nurse called Robyn’, ‘Mal not really of Arabia’, ‘Brad the Light Horseman’ and ‘Save Our Souls Susie’ (who is actually the project manager for this exhibition).

Andrew Pike from Ronin Cinemas has asked me to give a brief introduction to the film and I’ll try to keep this under five minutes.

We all hope to see you there, even if you do have to purchase an air ticket!

Mal

The papers of General Sir Henry George Chauvel are one of the highlights of the Memorial’s written collections.  This collection contains numerous correspondence exchanged between “Harry” Chauvel and his family and also includes two spectacular, large leather bound, gold embossed, scrap books created by Lady Chauvel after the war. The volumes document Chauvel’s military engagements during the war and offer an insight into his actions and thoughts. They contain a selection of his letters, hand transcribed by his wife, as well as photographs, maps, field message notes and news cuttings. The first volume includes a water colour scene of Palestine signed by Will Longstaff and was bound using fine calf from the Chauvel family’s own animals. The second volume was bound by the Memorial in matching style following its donation.

read on

A colleague here recently unearthed this photo from our collection. The caption in our catalogue doesn’t really give too much away about it other than that it was taken somewhere in Palestine, probably in 1918 and by the famous photographer Frank Hurley.

So, we’ve decided to run a caption contest. We will publish the best and spend some time thinking up a suitable prize for the winner. The distinguished judging panel will be Nigel (who can spell), Robyn (who is a film-buff) and me (because it might prove amusing). Our decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into (unless accompanied by substantial bribes). Entries will close on 15 December 2006 and we’ll then announce the winner.

Mal

We’ve now adjusted all of the images we have used in the blog so that they will open up to either a catalogue entry from our collection or as a higher resolution image in another window to allow you to see more detail. In earlier posts, you can now see a lot more detail in the images we posted from our copy of Seven pillars of wisdom and the Handbook of the Turkish Army. As an example, click on the image in this post of our copy of Seven pillars of wisdom.

Mal