Exciting art changeovers in the First World War, Second World War and Korea galleries

Exciting changes are afoot in the Memorial galleries! The Art Section has been working closely with Exhibitions to update our displays with the installation of nearly fifty paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, previously in storage. The changeovers aim to enrich visitor experiences and offer new insights into Australia’s military history through unique works of art by Will Dyson, Dora Meeson, Nora Heysen, Horace Moore-Jones, and Ivor Hele, among many others.

First World War Galleries

It was sad to take down our stunning Hilda Rix Nicholas drawings in the 1916 Gallery, but we kept her portrait of A man in the Western Front 1918 Gallery. The ‘red wall’ now has four works by official war artists, Arthur Streeton and Will Dyson alongside two remarkable pastel drawings by the inimitable Iso Rae. While Rae was not an official war artist, she was strategically located in Étaples near the French Belgian border when the First World War broke out. Although born and trained in Melbourne, Rae had lived there with her sister and mother since 1890 when the sleepy port town was a flourishing artists’ camp. When the British army established a major military base at Étaples in 1914 many artists evacuated, except for the Rae family.

The Étaples base was a notoriously brutal military complex comprising of a training centre known as ‘the bull ring’, a prisoner of war camp, a hospital, and a cemetery. Around 100,000 Australian, British, Canadian, New Zealand and Scottish troops were stationed at Étaples throughout the war. Living in the town, the Rae women joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD). During her breaks, Rae drew the soldiers as they prepared to go to the Western front and upon their return to the camp, sick and injured from battle. In these two works, the unusual juxtaposition of military subjects drawn in the delicate medium of chalky pastel creates a powerful sense of disquiet. Rae makes the most of her reduced palette of blue, black, white and yellow to create haunting images of life inside the camp, which was both a dangerous and monotonous existence. In one of her earliest works depicting the camp, Sentries at prisoners’ tent (1915), Rae judiciously applies the radiant yellow and white chalks to light the entire composition. The only light and warmth in the scene is the striking illumination from the central tent and the glow of its neighbour in which two prisoners are depicted as shadows.

We have replaced a Sidney Nolan of Gallipoli depicting Simpson and his donkey with a rare watercolour by Horace Moore-Jones (1868–1922) called The landing at Anzac 25th April 1915, which the artist painted on the spot. The earliest known depiction of the Gallipoli landing by an enlisted artist, this watercolour sketch of Anzac forces coming ashore was likely created shortly after the landing, showing Gallipoli Cove before the tracks and diggings in the hills, and before construction of piers leading out from the beach. Moore-Jones enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in 1914 and was posted to the 1st Field Company of Engineers. He served as aide de camp for ANZAC commander Lieutenant General Birdwood, who remarked: “Many of Sapper Moore-Jones’s pictures were, I know, done while shells were whistling overhead, and they portray very faithfully the country in which we were operating, and being so full of detail as they are, give a good impression of the conditions of life in which our troops were working for some eight months.”

Second World War Galleries

One of the major changes in the Second World War galleries is the installation of a significant painting by the British artist and RAF pilot David T. Smith, which replaces a Dennis Adams painting, A daylight raid. On the Bomber Offensive: Air Europe wall we have installed Smith’s haunting, surrealist depiction of the Incident in which Flight Sergeant Rawdon Middleton [VC] lost his life (1949) which was given to Australia by the Royal Air Force in 1951. I was taken aback by this painting when I first saw it, not only by its scale but also its sense of otherworldliness. The dramatic death of Middleton VC was graphically depicted in numerous newspapers at the time, but this painting draws on the psychological impact of Middleton’s death and sacrifice and focuses on the crew members’ lives he saved through his heroic actions on that night. Middleton’s story is always worth recounting:

On the night of 28 November 1942, Flight Sergeant Rawdon Hume Middleton VC led No. 149 Squadron, Royal Air Force in an attack on the Fiat works at Turin, Italy. His aircraft was severely damaged by anti-aircraft fire over the target, a shell burst in the cockpit, and he suffered wounds to the face and lost an eye. Despite the flight over the Alps having used too much fuel to make the return journey, Middleton was determined to reach English soil, telling his crew, “We will try to make our coast and you fellows can then bale out and save yourselves – I cannot get away with my wounds anyway.” Five of his men landed safely before Middleton turned back to sea to avoid crashing in a populated area. The two men who remained with him lost their lives after bailing out; their parachutes can be seen floating towards the sea in the distance.

The artist David T. Smith served on the same squadron as Middleton. Previously catalogued as a work by an unknown artist by the name of David Smith, the research by the Art Section aided by our colleagues at the Royal Air force Museum London, has revealed the correct attribution of this fascinating artist. And a call out to archivist/curators across the Memorial, I would love to locate the original letter from the RAF donating the painting to the Australian Government. Despite a thorough search, the paper trail for this gift is minimal and I would like to remedy that!

Staying on English soil, we have also installed two watercolours by Dora Meeson draw on-the-spot as the artist walked around ruined London streets in 1941. Meeson was an Australian artist who lived in Chelsea throughout the First and Second World Wars. The works selected depict buildings bombed during the Blitz, including Burton Court, Chelsea (1941) and The inner temple, (6 June 1941) alongside British artist, Ethel Gabain’s, The evacuation of children from Southend 2nd June, 1940. These works go a long way in explaining the acute motivation Flight Sergeant Rawdon Middleton VC and his crew felt in making their fateful mission to Italy in 1942.

There have been a significant number of changes in our various Prisoner of War spaces including the installation of two incredible drawings by Murray Griffin and Jack Chalker in the Japan Prisoner of War gallery. Drawn in Singapore in 1943, Griffin’s Working on a Thailand railway cutting July 1943 replaces the Jack Chalker of Weary Dunlop at the operating table. The drawing portrays Australian prisoners of war forced to build the Burma–Thailand Railway. Appalled by the condition in which men returned from the railway, Griffin sought to document their experiences using rudimentary materials scrounged from Changi Prison. Brushes were made from human hair, and pigment was cultivated by holding an iron bar over a coconut oil lamp flame and scraping the soot from the bar.

You will also find a new Jack Chalker work on the opposite wall. Chalker served in the Royal Field Artillery in the Second World War and was attached to the Second AIF as a war artist. Drawn in London in 1946, this work documents the Construction of a bridge over the Mae Khlong River. During the construction of the Burma–Thailand Railway, a bridge was built at the meeting point of the Mae Khlong and Khwae Noi rivers. Prisoners were forced to use human-powered pile-drivers to sink the wooden supports for the bridge. Captured during the fall of Singapore in 1942, Chalker made drawings of the conditions endured by prisoners of war. To keep his drawings secret, he hid his work in sections of bamboo buried in the ground, in the roofs of huts, or in the artificial legs of amputees. After liberation in 1945, Chalker produced copies of his works.

Back on the home front in Australia we have changed over a Sybil Craig portrait so that we could unite two remarkable paintings by Grace Taylor. Land Army Girls on Cotton painted in Biloela, Queensland in 1945 joins the beloved Smoko time with the AWLA. British-born Grace Taylor immigrated to New Zealand in 1902 and trained as a professional artist at the Elam School of Art in Auckland. She moved to Sydney in 1926 and later settled in Brisbane. In 1942, she was appointed a field officer in the Australian Women’s Land Army and made a small group of paintings depicting the back-breaking agricultural work undertaken by women in support of the war effort.

Korea Gallery

For our Ivor Hele fans at the Memorial we have changed over four stunning sanguine drawings by the master. The works on paper collection by Ivor Hele is extraordinary so it was very hard to decide which works to include. We settled on three dramatic portraits, one of Choi Wha Joon, which tells the moving story of the many orphaned children during the war in Korea; a double portrait of Lance Corporal Robert Holman Gow of Victoria, wearing a woollen beanie, and on the right is Lance Corporal Roy Anderson of Queensland, wearing a beret. They were members of 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. We have also included a fantastic drawing called 88 radio set, which is really a characteristic portrait of Platoon Signaller Private Peter Beyer.

In addition to enhancing our understanding of military history, these changeovers assist in conserving our Art for future generations. For those not able to visit the Memorial in person, explore over 8,000 digitised artworks available to view on our website.

Learn about new objects, from the Research Collection, on display in the First World War Galleries.