Captioning contest

21 November 2006 by Mal Booth. 4 Comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, The Light Horse

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

Improved blog images

21 November 2006 by Mal Booth. 2 Comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse

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

The Taking of Damascus

14 November 2006 by Mal Booth. 2 Comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, Chauvel, Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, Our exhibition, The Light Horse

The blog has recently received a number of comments that reveal the entry into Damascus in October 1918 still inspires strong feelings.

The question of who was the first to enter the city has been disputed ever since. The evidence now points to the men of Brigadier General L C Wilson’s 3rd Light Horse Brigade as being the first troops to enter Damascus in the early hours of 1 October. It has always been the intention of both the exhibition and the blog to draw attention to this fact as part of a wider historical story. Indeed, to illustrate this we plan to feature some of Brigadier Wilson’s material, as well as some of General Sir Harry Chauvel’s, along with original documents from the unit war diaries.

On 14 September 2006 we posted an article in this blog about the rare and lavishly produced 1926 subscribers’ edition of Lawrence’s Seven pillars of wisdom that the Memorial holds in its collection and that will also be featured in the exhibition. After the Memorial had purchased its 1926 edition Chauvel, who was a member of the Memorial’s then Board of Trustees, drew attention to some of the inaccuracies contained in the book. He wrote to the Memorial’s Director on 1 January 1936 that he ‘agreed to the purchase of this book as a very remarkable publication in connection with the late War likely to increase in value, not as an accurate record of events’. In a very detailed 13 page letter, Chauvel went on to outline his main concerns with Lawrence’s account. read on

The oldest photograph in the collection

09 November 2006 by Shaune Lakin. No comments
Exhibitions, Focus: photography and war 1945–2006

Thomas Wingate’s (1807-69) photograph of the 1st Regiment of the NSW Rifle Volunteers standing in order is among the earliest Australian photographs to document the military activities of colonial citizens. It records an important moment for one of the colony’s first volunteer regiments. On 18 May 1861, the wife of the NSW Governor presented the corps with its regimental and camp colours in the Domain. One week later, the day this photograph was taken, the regiment held a review in the Domain to celebrate the Queen’s birthday; this photograph was taken at the Victoria Barracks, before the regiment’s journey to the Domain. The day marked the public debut of the regiment’s new colours and flag, and was probably the occasion that prompted Wingate, who had recently relinquished his command of the corps, to take a photograph.

Lambert and Charles Bean

07 November 2006 by Janda Gooding. No comments
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes

Charles Bean had great respect for George Lambert. In his book Gallipoli Mission (1948) Bean described Lambert as ‘picturesque’, a great mimic and storyteller. For Bean, Lambert “with the golden beard, the hat, the cloak, the spurs, the gait, the laugh and the conviviality of a cavalier” was a great Australian. But equally, Bean respected Lambert’s dedication to his work and the way he approached his commissions as an official war artist. In his obituary of Lambert published in The Reveille 1930 Bean said “nothing pleased him more than to receive something approximating to an ‘operation order,’ and to carry it out, and come back at dusk formally to report what he had done.” Asked to deliver a minimum of 25 sketches during his first commission in Palestine in 1918, Lambert produced over 150.

In 1924 Lambert painted a portrait of Charles Bean. It is clear from correspondence between the two men and this sympathetic portrait, that Lambert admired Bean. The two men had discussed the terms of Lambert’s 1918 commission to Palestine over dinner at the Chelsea Arts Club in London and it was Bean who had personally insisted that Lambert be appointed to go on the Gallipoli Mission. Likewise Lambert called Bean ‘skipper’, ‘the old Bean’ and said “Bean is very interesting,… but he is not scientific, how can a man be scientific & go through these last few years?”

Janda

Lambert at Tiberias

07 November 2006 by Janda Gooding. 1 Comment
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Exhibition

While he was travelling through Palestine, Lambert would get up early and work all day painting and sketching. This photo by Ossie Coulson was taken near Tiberias in early June 1919 during Lambert’s second tour of Palestine. It is most likely that Lambert was painting the sketch Tiberias when the photo was taken.

On 7 June 1919 Lambert wrote of his visit to Tiberias: ‘I visited and sketched Tiberias a motor ride of about six miles from here. Tiberias [is] really lovely & if one could only begin Palestine from this end of the Desert it would give a much better impression. Round about here there are wonderful subjects just now…’.

Janda

The Gallipoli Mission

03 November 2006 by Janda Gooding. No comments
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Gallipoli Mission

In January 1919 a small group led by Charles Bean left London to travel to Gallipoli. The Australian Historical Mission was comprised of war records section staff, photographers and officers who had served at Gallipoli in 1915. The primary tasks of the mission were to report on the state of the war graves at Gallipoli and for Bean to try and resolve many of the riddles of the 1915 campaign. George Lambert was asked by Bean to go with the mission and to make oil and pencil studies that could later help him create two large works commissioned by the Australian Government for the future Australian War Memorial. Bean was particularly anxious that Lambert be the appointed artist as he felt that Lambert was the best of the Australian artists available. Bean also asked Hubert Wilkins a well known photographer to accompany the Mission and record the landscape through photography.

When the mission arrived at Gallipoli, a Turkish Officer Major Zeki Bey who had fought at Gallipoli joined the group. Zeki Bey walked the ground with Bean exchanging information and giving him a Turkish perspective of the 1915 campaign.

Additionally, the Graves Registration Unit was working in the area locating and identifying the remains of allied soldiers, reburying them and charting the cemeteries. The atmosphere in which Lambert painted was greatly influenced by the work going on around him as bones and bodies were constantly being unearthed, catalogued and then re-interred.The work he produced on Gallipoli is more sombre and muted in colour. He described the landscape of Gallipoli as disturbing and ‘melancholy’ and as he was making ready to depart he wrote to his wife “I cannot tell you how pleased I am at getting clear of this graveyard beautiful as it is nor can I explain how satisfied I am to have done what work I have done.”

Janda

Landscape and memory

03 November 2006 by Janda Gooding. No comments
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Landscape

All of us live with landscape all the time. It surrounds us and is part of our lives. This section looks at some different aspects of art, landscape and how these two things can help shape our memories and our view of the world. 

ANZAC biscuits

03 November 2006 by Janda Gooding. No comments
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Miscellaneous

When I first arrived at the War Memorial in February 2005, I started to make these biscuits for the Art Section. Such a simple recipe and steeped with history!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of rolled oats
• 1 cup of shredded coconut
• 125 gms of butter
• 1 tablespoon of Golden Syrup
• 2 tablespoons of hot water
• salt

Grease – or line with baking paper – a baking tray.

Preheat the oven to 180 degree C.

Combine the dry ingredients – flour, sugar, oats and coconut – add about half a teaspoon of salt. It’s not essential but seems to give a richer more balanced flavour.

Melt the butter and golden syrup and add half of the water. (use the other tablespoon of water if the mixture ends up too dry)

Pour the butter mixture into the dry ingredients and mix everything together really well.

Drop desert spoons of the mixture onto the tray and flatten slightly with the back of the spoon. They will expand a bit so leave some space around them.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden, take out and let stand for a few minutes before putting on a wire rack to cool.

If your’e feeling adventurous, you can add other ingredients to make variations: strawberry Anzacs, lemon Anzacs and even white chocolate Anzacs all seem to work well.

Read more about ANZAC Biscuits.

Image preparation for Contact and Focus

01 November 2006 by Bob McKendry. No comments
Exhibitions, Focus: photography and war 1945–2006, Preparation of images

All Imagery for the book, Contact, was captured at 16bit, 600dpi, ProPhoto RGB at 200mm x 250mm. This then became our raw uncorrected file. From this file we prepared a master RGB file, where we dodged and burnt with density as well as contrast, utilising the Adjustment layer and layer mask features within Photoshop. Once all files were prepared in this fashion we were ready to place them into the designer’s (Brett Wiencke, Art Direction Creative, Manuka) Indesign layout, but before this could happen we had to create a CMYK profile that would characterise and optimise the chosen printing press. This was done by printing colour patches through the off-set printer, then measuring them against a predefined colour number and mapping the difference.

Armed with the Printer specific CMYK profile we converted all master RGB images to the CMYK profile, and then placed these image files into the Indesign document. With the colour management policies set correctly in Indesign we exported a print ready PDF.x file of the book and this was delivered along with in-house proofs to Goanna Print. For the Focus exhibition we produced Giclee fine art prints on Hahnemuhle photorag paper. This is a %100 cotton rag fine art paper. The master RGB file was corrected again repurposing for this material. As part of the re-purposing procedure we had to increase contrast and sharpen selected images. For the colour images the printing was done on the Crane Museo Silver Rag paper, a digital equivalent of a traditional fibre based paper and the above repurposing was also required.

Raw image:

Corrected image: